Grim Trigger Complex
by Ninjagrrl
Summary: AU. Tatsumi has a habit of picking up waifs and strays. TatsumixHisoka.
1. Chapter 1

Grim Trigger Complex

Author's Notes- My first high school AU in seven years of fic writing! It won't be hardcore angst (I'm having enough fun prodding Hisoka around in Meltdown), but it's not quite a fluffy romance either. Anime-based.

The title isn't Engrish (:D), it actually refers to game theory, a branch of maths examining how players choose strategies in a situation (e.g. social interaction) where the outcomes depends on if they cooperate or act in their own interests. Grim Trigger is a harsh, unforgiving strategy. The player initially cooperates so long as other participants do, but if their opponent 'triggers' them by acting selfishly just once, the player does not forgive them and will forever cease to cooperate. Tatsumi is a maths teacher, so there is a reason behind it.

Also, I've had to do a fair bit of research into Japanese education, but I know there are things I'll have got wrong, so sorry in advance!

Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

Warning- This will involve a relationship between a teacher and pupil, if it squicks anyone out. While this isn't shota or anything, most countries have stricter laws if the relationship involves someone in a position of authority. A relationship between an adult teacher and a sixteen year old pupil is rarely romantic or fluffy, since it involves an authority figure who holds a lot of power over an (often) emotionally immature student.

- - -

It was Tatsumi's first day at work.

He had arrived at the school early, when only caretakers and groundskeepers were around working to ensure there wasn't so much as a daisy out of place in the beautifully kept grounds, or a smudge of dust marring the polished dark wood panelling in the reception. Unlike the majority of Japanese schools, this place did not rely on students to keep the buildings clean. Tatsumi didn't think mopping the floors would do the students any harm, but then he supposed if their parents were willing to pay the ridiculously high tuition fees, they could demand that some of that money went on a few cleaning staff.

Tatsumi was thankful for the rather lowly parking space he had been assigned right at the end of the car park when he realised his vehicle would be one of the least expensive there. He had previously worked as an accountant for some fairly successful businesses and his salary here would be higher still, but he rarely spent much besides rent and living costs, and a flashy car had never appealed to him at all. He parked, gathered his briefcase and files and paused by his car for a moment to admire the surroundings. The grounds were pleasant here. The school was set in a small, well-maintained park with plenty of land for sports grounds, a swimming pool, gardens and a cross-country track marked out amongst the immaculately kept woods. It was a dull morning, but the rising dew and the scent of grass freshly cut for the new school year filled the air with fragrance. It was easy to forget it wasn't so far from the city, and Tatsumi had plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely walk up to the school buildings.

He double-checked he knew the locations of all the classrooms he would be teaching in that day before making his way to the teachers' lounge, his footsteps echoing in the near-silence. The only other sounds came from the distant droning hum of some cleaning machine polishing the floors to a dull sheen. Taking advantage of the solitude, Tatsumi surveyed the awards and artwork on the walls. Neatly printed cards underneath bore the names of students who had gone on to become famous politicians, businessmen and academics. It was pleasant to be back in an academic environment. Tatsumi's university years had been the best times of his life. Although his social life had been unimpressive, he had enjoyed his work and it had allowed him the guilty pleasure of escaping his mother and the aura of sadness around her that he could never break through.

There was no one in the teacher's lounge either, and he was glad to have half an hour or so alone to run through his lesson plans one final time. Tatsumi was quite confident in his own abilities and didn't expect there would be any troubles with his lessons, but it was the first day of term and there was always the possibility that someone had forgotten to register a class or given out two contradicting timetables. A minute or two had passed before clattering footsteps broke the tranquil silence that hung over the school. Tatsumi glanced up from his notes to see a familiar, tousled blonde head looking around the teaching room door.

"Watari! Good morning,"

"Here almost an hour early? Shame on you," His friend said, wandering into the room and offering Tatsumi a cup of coffee. Even at this early hour, there were fresh stains on Watari's lab coat and something blue caked on the protective goggles that currently held back his unruly blonde hair.

"So are you," Tatsumi said, eyeing his coffee dubiously. He never quite trusted anything that had been near Watari's laboratory.

"Ah," Watari beamed. "I do, however, have the excuse of coming in early to use the laboratory facilities for purely selfish purposes, and not to prepare a day of stimulating, engaging lessons as you appear to be doing. By the way, that coffee came from the machines, so you can relax," He perched on a nearby chair and turned Tatsumi's stack of papers towards himself, glancing over them.

"The pupils are never going to find maths that stimulating or engaging," Tatsumi said dryly, recovering his lesson plans relatively well and unharmed, with only a few blue fingerprints smudged on the top sheet.

"Well, I'm glad you got into teaching," Watari said, standing up again and going to look over the noticeboard in the corner of the room. The blonde was rarely still for more than a few minutes unless he was working on one of his experiments. Then, he could spend hours gently fusing together two wire filaments as delicate as insect antennae, or patiently watching microorganisms slowly shift and divide under a lens.

"You've been pestering me long enough," Tatsumi said absently, trying to pick off the worst of the blue stuff and hoping it wasn't anything toxic. "Besides, I _liked_ accounting,"

"Yes, but it was such a waste of your talents," Watari said breezely, now watching something out the window. Tatsumi finally worked up the nerve to try his coffee and choked. Watari took advantage of the silence to continue talking.

"You're really cut out to be the mentor type," He told Tatsumi, who was still coughing and discreetly trying to see where the water cooler was. "You were wasted on balancing numbers and helping rich old men beat their taxes down another few yen,"

"What about you?" Tatsumi finally managed to speak. He put down the coffee and carefully pushed it as far away from his person as possible. "You should be working in a university or private research laboratory somewhere, not as a high school doctor,"

"Yes," Watari's smile was a little wistful. "Well, unfortunately no one wants to sponsor my areas of research interest. No faith, I tell you! Still, the school gives me full use of the laboratories. It's not a bad deal really," Besides his work as the school doctor, Watari gave extra science classes for gifted pupils, to further assist them into getting a place at a decent university.

"I can't say you have me convinced on this teaching business," Tatsumi said. "I'm not exactly in touch with teenagers today," He straightened his tie and checked Watari's mysterious blue stuff hadn't stained his sober dark suit anywhere.

"You look smart. Too smart. The kids will hate you," But Watari was smiling. "I'm glad you took the job up,"

"I'm sure I'll live to regret it," Tatsumi said, his eyebrow raised. "You know I don't like children,"

Watari made an exasperated noise and plucked Tatsumi's lessons plans back out of his hand. "You're taking the advanced classes? Your pupils will be sixteen at the very youngest, and most of them will be legal adults. Besides, you should have plenty of patience looking after the young at heart. How is Tsuzuki anyway?"

"Not so bad," Tatsumi said, guardedly. He trusted Watari, but Tsuzuki was a sensitive subject.

"You have such a habit of picking up waifs and strays," Watari mused. "I'm rather glad actually- there's one of my patients I'd like someone to keep an eye on, and I think I'd value your judgement here,"

"Of course," Tatsumi said, a little surprised by the concern. It wasn't that Watari was uncaring so much as he simply didn't seem to notice many things outside of his own research. "Which one?"

"Hisoka Kurasaki," Watari said.

Tatsumi frowned. "Really?" He shuffled his papers and glanced through the seating plans in front of him, the name sounding familiar. "Ah. He is in one of my classes, yes. But he wasn't mentioned as a problem student," Saya, a pretty young English teacher who had taken it on herself to show him around, had run him through the class register and quietly pointed out those who may give him trouble. There were the usual sorts of high school problems that appeared even amongst these seemingly privileged teenagers- the rumoured cocaine user, a joyrider, two anorexic girls, a couple of rich kids trying to rebel against their parents in the only way Japanese teenagers often could- by self destructing spectacularly. She had paused by Hisoka's name and then skipped over it after a moment's consideration.

"No.." Watari mused on it. "I doubt you'd find a teacher who would name him as a troublesome student. But I also think you'll find most of them are uneasy around him, although none of them would ever admit it,"

"Why?"

Watari shrugged. "Oh, it's difficult to put your finger on. The kid definitely has an attitude problem, but he never _says_ anything," He looked frustrated. "Actually, he's as polite as they come, even though it's obvious he doesn't respect any of us. None of the other students seem to like him either. In fact, I'd go so far as to say some of them are scared of him,"

"Family problems?" Tatsumi asked.

"I don't know," Watari shrugged. "His parents come in when they need to, and there doesn't seem to be anything immediately wrong. Up to date on their son's progress, no obvious marital problems, old, well-known family. Perhaps a little cold. I've tried to talk to them once or twice without much success- I think the boy needs a brain scan- but they won't listen,"

"Is he sick?"

"He has.. fairly inexplicable headaches," Watari said, looking frustrated. "As school doctor, there's only so many tests I can run, but his symptoms don't make any sense. He misses quite a lot of school time due to sickness as well, not that you'd know from his grades. I've told his parents that they should rule out the worst possibilities first, but they still won't take him for further tests,"

"Strange," Tatsumi said. Most of the students here were highly privileged, with parents who paid small fortunes to send them to the right school and the right after-school activities and cram classes. Of course, that didn't necessarily make them all _good_ parents, but it certainly meant they could afford to run some tests, and what sort of parents would risk their son's health?

"Yes," Watari said with a sigh, changing subject. "Not nervous about the rest of your students then?"

"Not really," Tatsumi shrugged. "I'm assuming they're all good kids if they got in here," The school was highly prestigious and well known throughout Japan. Getting in required exceptional performance on entrance exams, rigorous interviews and a great deal of money to pay the tuition fees as well as the costs of uniforms, class outings and a hundred other little things.

Watari laughed. "Sometimes the rich kids are the wildest, you know. But I doubt they'll be able to get up to much in a maths lesson," He glanced at the clock, scooped up his own coffee and wandered back over to the door, then paused for a second.

"Oh, and one other thing," Watari looked serious. "That Hisoka boy. I've noticed injuries quite a lot- grazes, small cuts, bruises, that sort of thing. It could be nothing, but it could be bullies or worse. Keep an eye on him, Tatsumi,"


	2. Chapter 2

Grim Trigger Complex

Author's Notes- I uploaded a couple of chapters at once, since nothing much happens in the first. Constructive criticism is extremely welcome.

Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

- - -

Tatsumi was taking a class for a maths lesson straight after registration, and so he didn't stay in the teacher's room for long. The other staff gradually showed up and were introduced to him, while he smiled politely and thought he'd managed to remember most of the names. By the time he'd had a moment alone to take one final look over his plans, there were ten minutes to go to the end of registration, and he left the lounge.

He entered the room once most of the class had retrieved their maths books from the lockers outside, a few late students still slipping past him apologetically. It was a pleasant classroom decorated with posters and artwork from past students, still rather dark at this time since the windows faced west. He perched on his desk, deciding to keep it informal, and waited while the last few students came back into the room. Most of them were eyeing him with faint curiosity, wondering who the new teacher was and how much he would let them get away with.

"Good morning," He greeted the class as the noise died down and they watched him, expectantly. "My name is Mr Tatsumi, and I will be taking your maths lessons this year," He stood to face the board and wrote his name in clear sharp chalk lines. "I believe your previous teacher has kept you all very well up to date, so we'll be starting the next text book on time. However, I will be holding revision sessions in a few weeks as many of the topics on the previous book will be of great importance for understanding the work this term,"

He wasn't sure where to go from there. Tatsumi was more reserved than some of his acquaintances like Tsuzuki or Watari, and while he was willing to be a mentor, he wasn't out to make friends with his students. Deciding that was a sufficient introduction, he launched into his first lesson.

They mostly seemed like adept students. He introduced the subject, guided them through a few examples on the board and answered a few questions. While talking them through it, Tatsumi had already spotted a few students who he suspected might need a little extra help. There were two slightly confused looking girls who alternated asking the only questions raised between them, and one rather dumpy boy in the first row who had a hopeless, completely lost expression on his round face. The rest seemed to be following his lesson, at least as well as students ever did on their first day back at school. Once the demonstration was over, he chalked up a handful of exercises for them to practise working through alone, and gave the class ten minutes to complete them.

The two girls' hands immediately shot into the air and waved around to catch his attention. With a faint sigh, Tatsumi went over to answer their questions, and spent another five minutes explaining the theory again. The boy in the front row still looked hopelessly out of depth, but wasn't asking for help, just glancing nervously at the students working to either side of him. Tatsumi sat back down, trying to look approachable, and studied the students while they worked.

The rumoured cocaine addict was there, a handsome tall young man with a blandly innocent expression that made him look as though he'd never so much as smoked a cigarette in his life. So was one of the anorexic girls, working diligently away in the front row and already on the last two equations. Tatsumi thought she didn't look ill at all, but after a second glance he could see swollen cold sores beneath the lipgloss and shadows under her eyes that were probably from malnutrition rather than studying late. He shook his head slightly at the sad sight, and looked away.

From the seating plan, he identified his next problem student. Hisoka was sat to the side of the room, gazing out of the window, his arms resting lightly on the desk before him. All Tatsumi could see from here was a sharp profile turned into the watery morning light and a wash of pale wheat-blonde hair spilling over the boy's eyes. After a moment, Hisoka seemed to sense Tatsumi's curious gaze upon him. He turned slowly back to face the front, meeting the teacher's eyes with cool disdain. Tatsumi automatically opened his mouth to say something, but there was nothing he could fault Hisoka on. His uniform was immaculate and his expression perfectly neutral, with only that aloof look in his eyes marking him as trouble. Tatsumi turned away first.

Once he'd given them enough time to complete the assignments, he stood up and worked through the first one on the board. After that, he asked volunteers to talk through the next few, and was pleasantly surprised to see that none of them went wrong. Of course, they were fairly easy examples.

"Good work," Tatsumi nodded in acknowledgement, and then moved onto the second part of the lesson. This wasn't easy stuff for high school students to pick up, and he was pleased to see that most of them were paying attention. One noticeable exception was Hisoka, who was gazing back out the window, radiating boredom and apathy.

After Tatsumi had finished talking the class through it, he stood up and crossed over to the board, chalking down an equation.

"One example to work through as a class first, and then we'll move onto exercise two individually," He said, then leaned forward and pretended to scan the seating plan on his desk. "Let's see.. Hisoka Kurasaki? Would you care to work through this for us?" He held out the chalk.

Hisoka rose slowly, his expression indifferent and walked to the front of the class. He took the chalk stick without acknowledgement, keeping his back to the class as he examined the equation for a second, and then began slowly chalking underneath it. After just a few strokes he stopped, and stepped back, handing the chalk to Tatsumi.

"Would anyone like to help Hisoka-" Tatsumi began automatically, and then glanced at the board. The answer was written underneath. Hisoka hadn't got stuck and given up, he'd worked it out in his head without having to write down all the equations needed to find the answer.

"Very good, Mr Kurosaki," He acknowledged, his eyebrow raised slightly. "Would you like to explain to the rest of the class how you got this answer?"

Hisoka didn't answer, but wordlessly took back the chalk and turned to the board. For a minute, the only sound was the scratching of chalk, and then he handed it back once he had finished and gazed at the floor, waiting for Tatsumi to dismiss him.

"Very well," Tatsumi said. "You may take your seat," He pointed to the first chalked out line as Hisoka walked past him and back to his desk, his gaze immediately returning to the window and the grey early morning outside. "Would anyone like to explain where Hisoka got these numbers from?"

The rest of the class managed to work through the equation, and after a few more questions he set them to work on the next exercise. Tatsumi was immediately kept busy walking around the classroom answering questions. The boy in the front row finally worked up the nerve to ask for help, and not a moment too soon as he had barely grasped any of the concepts explained in the lesson. A trio of girls he had noticed passing notes in the back row waved their hands around frantically until he came over and spent five minutes trying to help them, wondering why they kept dissolving into breathy giggles over their own stupidity and fumbling with the most simple equations. He didn't realise the answer until he was walking away and heard a short, slightly hysterical laugh from one of the girls, and realised he would be the subject of much avid note-passing in future lessons.

Tatsumi was pleasantly surprised by how fast the lesson had went. He found the work more absorbing than he had expected. Despite the slow pace, it was far more satisfying than balancing accounts and the class hadn't given him any real trouble at all. Most of them appeared to find him quite approachable and there was no more disruption than the odd whisper or discreet note passing.

Since the next class was music, the students would be leaving to go to another room. Tatsumi watched them gathering their notebooks and papers, quite content with his first lesson. The students were rather noisy, but it was the first day back and they had a lot to catch up on, and so he sat back indulgently and let them chat as they got their things together and began to leave the classroom in twos and threes. With the exception of one student, he noticed with a frown. Hisoka wasn't talking to any of them. He stood slowly and picked up his books in silence as he turned to leave.

"One minute," Tatsumi called out, as a thought crossed his mind. "Hisoka, may I have a word?"

Hisoka shot him a slightly baleful look, but crossed over towards his desk and stood there quietly with his pale sandy hair washing into his eyes. Up this close, Tatsumi could see a violet and green smudge on one sharp cheekbone that might be the bruises Watari had been talking about, a mark like a thumbprint that contributed to the permanently sullen set of Hisoka's fine features. Tatsumi didn't know much about teenagers, but the hard, caustic look in the boy's green eyes was the sort of look he'd associate with teenage girls who showed up to school with split lips and smoked behind the bike sheds, or hard faced boys with track-marked arms who spent most of their time wandering the streets.

"Mr Tatsumi?" Hisoka asked in a soft monotone, standing there with his notebooks held neatly across his chest. There was another bandage just showing under his uniform, wrapped around a startlingly thin wrist as though he had sprained it.

Tatsumi glanced up to meet Hisoka's sharp, watchful eyes. "Don't worry, it's not anything important. You're not in trouble on your first day back," He smiled slightly to ease the mood, but Hisoka didn't look amused.

"I noticed you've missed a lot of school time due to illness. It doesn't seem to be affecting your grades at all, but I thought I'd check if you need any extra notes or revision lessons for subjects you've missed?"

"No, thank you," Hisoka said, his tone polite although he looked as though he grudged each word he spoke. Tatsumi could see why Watari found the boy so puzzling. He decided to push things a little further.

"You manage to catch up yourself?" Tatsumi asked. "Or at cram school?"

"I study in my own time," Hisoka said, his voice slightly weary as though already tired with the conversation. He was gazing into the dully gleaming wood surface of Tatsumi's desk rather than meeting the teacher's eyes.

"Well, then your grades are all the more impressive for it," Tatsumi said. "You'll have to consider taking my extra maths lessons once they start. If you're considering one of the major universities, they'll be very useful,"

"I'll keep that in mind, Mr Tatsumi," Hisoka shifted slightly. "I have music class.."

"Ah," Tatsumi said, noticing the class was now empty. "Sorry to keep you, Hisoka,"

Hisoka didn't acknowledge him and left the room. There was a sudden bright dazzle from the hall's fluorescent lights on blonde hair, and then he had disappeared back into the crowds of other students dawdling between classes. Tatsumi watched him go, puzzled. He could see what had confused Watari. He wanted to write it off to an attitude problem or some sort of authority complex, but there was something else there underneath Hisoka's hard eyes. He wasn't sure about the bruises either. Fighting seemed unlikely. Watari had said many of the students were scared of Hisoka and he certainly wouldn't be the first student without a discipline record to be found getting into trouble on the side, but Tatsumi wasn't so certain. He shook his head, dismissing the thoughts for now, and glanced over his lesson plan. He didn't have any classes for the next two hours, and so he left for the teacher's lounge.

He recognised three people as he entered. There was the headteacher, who he had met two or three times for interviews, Watari over by the water cooler in some animated conversation with a biology teacher, and Saya, the young English teacher who had shown him around the school.

"How did it go?" She asked breathlessly as Tatsumi arrived, already gathering up her scattered notebooks and files. "Sorry, I've got to collect some homework in a minute-"

"It's fine," Tatsumi said, leaning over to lend her a hand. "And yes, it went rather well,"

"Uh-huh. None of them giving you any trouble?" Saya asked, checking her reflection briefly in a pocket mirror. "Some of the boys in that class can be so _disrespectful_-"

He chuckled and handed her the notes he had gathered. "And until I'm a beautiful young university graduate, I doubt they'll give me the same special attention you get,"

"Oh, hush," Saya said, but she looked pleased. "Good luck for the rest of the day, if I don't see you," She scooped up her last files and flipped her light brown hair over her shoulder as she walked away. Tatsumi smiled, and took her vacated seat as she left the room. He liked Saya, and not only because she had been so friendly towards a new teacher. She was young and inexperienced, but genuinely devoted to her students. He had been impressed by how much of their backgrounds she had known when talking him through the more troublesome pupils.

Watari finished his conversation with an exasperated noise that Tatsumi heard across the room, throwing his hands in the air with a dismissive gesture. The scientists turned away from each other, both looking slightly pleased with themselves and obviously convinced they had came out on top. He left the water cooler and crossed over the lounge, flopping inelegantly into a chair next to Tatsumi. "So, how did it go?"

"Not bad at all," Tatsumi said. "They're good students. I can't work out that Kurosaki boy though,"

"Don't worry about it," Watari said. "None of us can, and we've been here a lot longer than you. I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it on your first day. It wasn't really fair to do that,"

"No, it's fine," Tatsumi reassured him. "Hisoka seems to be a natural at maths, so he'll probably end up in one of the extra classes once they start,"

Watari shrugged. "I wouldn't count on it. I've been trying to get him into my science classes ever since I saw his grades, and it's not going anywhere. He's good at everything, but he just doesn't care about anything at all,"

"I'll keep on trying," Tatsumi promised, although he had his doubts. If the more outgoing, friendly teachers like Watari and Saya couldn't get through to Hisoka, he didn't see what difference he could possibly make.


	3. Chapter 3

Grim Trigger Complex

Author's Notes- Just a few notes about characterisation- firstly, this is set before the shinigamis' deaths, therefore Tsuzuki will be in the somewhat less sane stages in his life, although thanks to having friends (rather than being institutionalised and alone) he won't be constantly depressed at all. Despite being essentially kind at heart, Tatsumi will find himself getting resentful or irritated at times- he doesn't have limitless patience after all. And Hisoka will not be particularly nice, or turn all fluffy as soon he discovers True Love. He has serious home issues and problems with empathy, and like lots of teenagers with problems, he seems to canonically react by being outwardly cold and moody.

Neither will the romance be all cuddly. Tatsumi is a teacher. No matter how genuine his feelings, he's still entering a relationship with a troubled sixteen year old under his care.

Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

- - -

Tatsumi had no more lessons after 2pm that day. He returned to the teacher's lounge automatically, but it was empty and there was nothing useful he could do there. After a minute or so drinking tea and riffling through files he almost knew by heart now, he reluctantly allowed himself to return home early. Doing so left him faintly uncomfortable. Tatsumi thrived on order and routine.

He mentally went through his plans for the evening as he walked to his car. The school day wouldn't finish for another two hours and the air was filled with shrieking and whistles from a distant gym class and the drone of a lawnmower nearby, increasing the feeling that he was running out on his work. As it was the first day back, he had no homework to mark yet. He had already prepared his entire first month of lessons before the term had even started, but he made a note to glance through them. They could possibly be revised now that he had met the students and had some idea of their capabilities. Then he could go back to the teaching guides Watari had given him and re-read the chapters on students with issues.

The traffic was light at this hour, and he arrived back at his home in half the time it had taken that morning. He parked his car and stepped out, holding an armful of files and his briefcase.

Tsuzuki was waiting for him, again.

He could have easily walked straight into the house without noticing Tsuzuki was there. Tsuzuki was sat silently behind the garden wall, staring at Tatsumi's locked front door. No one from the street could see him there, and Tatsumi had almost missed him too. He wondered briefly what would have happened if he had gone straight into the house, too absorbed by his own plans to notice his friend. He had an unpleasant feeling that Tsuzuki would have remained there throughout the night.

"Oh, Tsuzuki," Tatsumi paused, and then opened his car door again and replaced his briefcase and files. His lesson plans would have to wait until later.

He crossed over the front lawn to Tsuzuki, a sweet, damp fragrance arising from the wet grass as he disturbed it. The rain had been heavy, and Tsuzuki had been waiting outside in it for some time. His face looked younger and more vulnerable with his hair slicked back and darkened to stark black in the rain. He clearly hadn't brought an umbrella or a coat, and the thin tshirt he wore clung as uselessly as damp tissue paper. Tatsumi felt a brief moment of irritation arise, that he did his best for Tsuzuki and he wouldn't even take care of himself. Then the moment dissipated before it had even formed as he noticed the bluish smudges under Tsuzuki's eyes, like bruises against his bloodless skin.

Tsuzuki glanced up as he finally registered Tatsumi's presence. One hand trailed in the long grass, loosely holding his dark glasses, and so now his eyes were uncovered for once. Tatsumi was used to seeing them only in subdued electrical light, and in the afternoon they held the brilliance of cut Siberian amethyst. Tsuzuki's slightly feverish, purple gaze would have startled most people, but Tatsumi was used to the colour by now and didn't draw back.

"Let's get you inside," Tatsumi said simply.

He had to help Tsuzuki stand, his muscles locked from sitting unmoving in the rain for hours. His skin was too cold to the touch, and once Tatsumi would have worried that Tsuzuki would catch a chill, and in his stressed state it would develop into something worse like pneumonia or bronchitis. But three years had passed since they had met, and he had come to realise there was something slightly odd about his friend even if he would never admit it. Instead, Tatsumi winced slightly as he felt damp soaking through his suit and realised he would have to press another for tomorrow.

Once they were inside the house, he found Tsuzuki a towel and some of the clothes he always kept over at Tatsumi's place, and sent him to go get changed while he made tea.

Tsuzuki emerged a few minutes later, his hair tousled from being scrubbed with a towel and his expression rather subdued. He took a seat silently in the kitchen. The room was tiny and really too small to entertain guests, but housing was in high demand around here and Tatsumi had been lucky to get it at all. His practical side often wondered what was wrong with him. He had inherited a beautiful, spacious family home when his mother had finally succeeded in throwing herself out of this world. He'd known that it was the sort of gift one couldn't overlook in these days, but when he went over to pack up her things to sell or give away, he couldn't bring himself to live there. The depression she had always suffered from still hung over the place, an oppressive atmosphere just beyond the physical senses that bore down on Tatsumi as soon as he entered. While he silently packed away a lifetime of possessions into cardboard boxes, he'd felt the same old guilt returning and knew he could never stay here. In the end, he'd simply removed the valuables and paid a company to clear the rest of the house, and never entered it again.

A whistling from the kettle brought him back out of memories. Dreaming wasn't like Tatsumi at all, and he lost himself in the simple routine of preparing tea again and crossed over to the table, finished. Tsuzuki had that guilty look that he hated seeing.

"Sorry, Tatsumi," Tsuzuki finally spoke.

"Don't worry about it," Tatsumi said, pouring tea. The tension headache forming like a knot in his head began to unwind as the steam filled the kitchen and condensed on the windows, blotting out the grey world outside. "A bad day?"

"Yes," Tsuzuki said, his voice small.

"You should have phoned me," Tatsumi told him. "I gave you my number,"

"It's your first day at work. I couldn't bother you there," Tsuzuki's smile was hesitant and heartbreakingly sweet. "How did it go?"

"Good," Tatsumi said briefly. He didn't particularly feel like talking about his day, but it was obvious Tsuzuki needed to take his mind off things. "They're not bad kids. I don't think they'll be giving me any trouble,"

"Good," Tsuzuki said after a pause. "That's good,"

Tsuzuki's sunglasses were sat on the table in front of him, one arm twisted out of shape, and he kept fiddling with them, his eyes downcast now they were exposed. The colour and intensity certainly were strange, but most adults reacted with nothing more than a double take, and Tatsumi couldn't understand why childhood memories had left Tsuzuki with such a complex about them. He'd finally managed to talk Tsuzuki out of wearing dark glasses in his house, but they were replaced as soon as he left. Tatsumi had even seen him wear them at his own apartment, perhaps in case he caught sight of his own reflection and saw a damning flash of purple in his otherwise normal features.

"Something's bothering you," Tsuzuki said, with a slight smile, finally putting the glasses down and looking up.

"Nothing much," Tatsumi sipped his tea, not ready to talk. "Forget about it,"

His voice sounded a little abrupt, and he could tell Tsuzuki had noticed by the way he instantly fell silent. Tatsumi regretted it instantly. He cared a great deal for his friend, but sometimes it manifested itself all wrong. He could be too harsh when he felt Tsuzuki wouldn't help himself. When it came to guiding him through getting a job or finding a doctor, he suspected it sometimes came across like orders rather than friendly advice. It had been the same with his mother. She had been weak, passive, lost in her own misery, and all he could do to try and break the sadness was to try and order her life again. He could make her get up, go and meet a friend or remember to take her pills, but in the end he was only forcing her to go through the motions and couldn't really reach her at all.

There was only so much he could ever do for Tsuzuki too.

Most of the acquaintances he had known through university or work would be surprised he had even gone this far for his friend. Tatsumi did not give out an immediate impression of friendliness or warmth. When he had met him, Tsuzuki was eighteen and looked younger. He seemed to have literally blown into town, sat by the side of the road in the rain. There was a faintly confused look about him, as though he was unsure how he had got there. Bandages were coming loose from one wrist and blood periodically welled up from a gash on his forehead, disappearing like an optical illusion as the rain diluted it again. He could have been a drug addict, mentally unwell, perhaps even involved in some gang crime. The practical thing to do would be to cross the street to a payphone, call a doctor and leave. Instead, Tatsumi had taken him home.

"What happened today?" He asked, his voice softer now. Tsuzuki's face brightened momentarily.

"Just the usual. It doesn't matter now. I was ready to go back home just before you showed up anyway,"

All lies, but it was easy to let himself believe them. It meant they could get onto the next part of the day faster, when Tatsumi would work quietly in the living room while Tsuzuki watched TV or read and slowly brightened up until he was back to his usual, cheerful self by evening. Tatsumi was thankful that while he could never find the right words, simply being in the presence of someone who didn't reject him seemed to be all that Tsuzuki needed sometimes.

Tsuzuki's mood picked up, and by the time it was dark outside he had decided to go back to his own apartment rather than spending the night in Tatsumi's spare room. Tatsumi insisted on giving him a lift and waited outside until he saw the light come on in Tsuzuki's room. He mused over what he should do on the way back. The rain had started again, reducing the world around him to a smeared grey watercolour.

Tatsumi wasn't sure where to go from here. He had spent three years trying to get Tsuzuki's life back on track, and failed. He had helped his friend to find a small apartment and guided him through the succession of part-time jobs he struggled to hold down, and beyond that he could do nothing. Tatsumi considered things as he waited at traffic lights. Personally, he thought it would be better if Tsuzuki was working again. At least, it had always been best for him when he needed distracting from the depressing situation at his own home, but then they weren't really alike at all. Truthfully, he didn't understand Tsuzuki.

Perhaps it was time to admit Tatsumi couldn't cope. He had been useless in the face of his mother's depression, and he couldn't handle Tsuzuki's pain either. With his higher salary, he could easily afford to find a good, private doctor for Tsuzuki. He added it to his list of plans, his mood lifting slightly now he had something to work on this evening.


	4. Chapter 4

Grim Trigger Complex

Author's Notes- When Tatsumi is trying to get Hisoka interested in his lessons, he describes one possible application of game theory. This isn't pure, hardcore maths, it doesn't take up much of the chapter and it's quite easy to follow, but it can be skipped over if wished. I promise there won't be any maths talk after this- I'm not a mathematician myself.

Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

- - -

Tatsumi phoned Tsuzuki before he left for work the next day, and was reassured by the sound of his voice, faintly bemused and heavy with sleep. It meant Tsuzuki hadn't been sat awake for most of the night to escape his dreams, and Tatsumi could go to work without worrying.

He glanced over his timetabled lessons for the day in the teacher's lounge, and noted he would be taking Hisoka's class again at the end of the day. Watari's teaching guides hadn't yielded much. They had advised that he made sure to compliment the anorexic girl on work well done, and informed him that such teenagers were usually over-achievers who took criticism seriously. There was a handy list of signs to watch out for around the suspected cocaine user too. But as for Hisoka, the only advice it could offer was to "immediately contact relevant services" if a teacher suspected a student may be in danger.

The first two lessons went well enough. Although he was simply repeating the same lessons he had already given to other classes, Tatsumi still found the work engaging and despite Saya's warnings, none of the students gave him any trouble. Of course, she was young and rather hesitant, while he was aware most people found him slightly intimidating. Tsuzuki had teased him about his daunting 'teacher voice' long before he had considered teaching as a career change.

He turned his phone on after the second lesson before he went to the teacher's lounge, choosing to walk around the outside of the building rather than make his way between students gathering their books or making their way to a gym or music class. The rain had ceased for a moment, and it was surprisingly quiet out there now, the gardens cool and wet and green. Tatsumi wasn't expecting any missed calls or messages, but he found one. Tsuzuki had called him half an hour ago.

He called back Tsuzuki's number and listened, somewhat concerned, as it rang over and over. Tatsumi was ready to hang up by the time it reached twenty, but on the nineteenth ring someone finally answered. There was a soft click as the receiver was picked up and a faint distortion as someone exhaled slightly, and then silence.

"Tsuzuki?" He asked. "Are you there?"

"Yes," Tsuzuki answered after a moment, his voice very far away. Tatsumi rubbed his temples, another headache slowly building up.

"Is it bad?" He asked. There was another silence broken only by the white noise of Tsuzuki's distant breathing.

"I think so," Tsuzuki paused for a moment. He heard his breath hitch slightly before he continued. "I went outside, and.." His voice trailed away.

"Right," Tatsumi said. "I'll be over in about half an hour. Don't worry about anything,"

Tatsumi turned around and went to the school office to explain his absence. He rarely missed any work days, and disappearing on the second day left him deeply uncomfortable. The petite receptionist appeared to pick up on this, and kept assuring him it would be fine as she found a form for him to complete in his own time.

The receptionist had asked if he could take a moment to leave instructions for his classes in case a substitute teacher couldn't be found, if it wasn't too much of an emergency, and Tatsumi agreed. He had two more classes that day. The first had already shown up, and he went to the room and gave them their assignments to complete by tomorrow. The other class were currently in gym. He left a note in chalk on the board asking them to leave their homework on the desk and telling them which exercises to complete- two for class work and another two for homework. Underneath, he optimistically added that they were welcome to stay in the classroom and quietly work on them.

Tatsumi drove home as fast as he could, running through the worst possibilities. It could be something small like someone staring at Tsuzuki in a shop, or in the worst case, perhaps Tsuzuki had attempted suicide. He hadn't tried to do so in a long time, but Tatsumi was aware that when his friend was lost in memories, he could easily lose touch with the world and forget the promises he had made.

If it was the suicide attempt, the worst outcome would be a bloody apartment or a drug-induced hangover that would bother him for a day or two. There was something strange about Tsuzuki, no matter how many times Tatsumi assured him he was normal. In the first year or so since he had came to town, he had attempted suicide several times and as an accountant, Tatsumi was very aware of just how slim the odds were that he would fail every time. Tsuzuki could down a lethal cocktail of pills and alcohol and inevitably woke up the next morning, feeling raw and nauseous as though he had been vomiting razor blades, but recovered completely by the evening. He could slash his wrists and there was always far too much blood for one person to lose, and the mangled flesh already knitting back together within hours.

Tatsumi pulled up outside Tsuzuki's flat and went up. No one answered, but he had his own key and when he went to unlock the door, it swung open of its own accord. He frowned and made a note to remind Tsuzuki about that.

All the lights had been left on. A TV was playing too loudly in the living room and there was music blaring from the kitchen. It was a familiar sight by now, Tsuzuki's attempts to fill his apartment with light and noise, and Tatsumi turned everything off as he went through the rooms. He eventually found Tsuzuki in the bedroom, squeezed in the space between the wall and bed as though he could make himself disappear if he curled up small enough.

"Have you taken anything?" He asked.

"No," Tsuzuki said, and Tatsumi believed him.

Tsuzuki wasn't in a good way, but he had seen him worse. He wouldn't be pried out of the small space, and so Tatsumi sat on the bed next to him and tried to get him to talk. He wished that Tsuzuki would tell him more so that he wasn't left blind, throwing out reassurances and sympathies for something he didn't understand. Tatsumi had gathered that Tsuzuki felt extreme guilt over something that had happened in the past, but he always fell silent when questioned about it. It left him uncomfortable that he could be involved with something serious, perhaps even a criminal, but despite logically knowing what he should do, Tatsumi couldn't bring himself to turn Tsuzuki over to the relevant authorities.

Tatsumi had also realised that a lot of it stemmed from Tsuzuki's differences, both his own lingering self-disgust and the way other people reacted to him.

"I have a sister," He had once confessed, before admitting he had left town so that she could follow her own life without putting up with Tsuzuki's neuroses, or the reputation of her strange brother forever hanging over her. It was the most Tatsumi had ever managed to get out of Tsuzuki regarding his former life.

Once Tsuzuki was settled, Tatsumi wearily got back into his car to return to the school. His final lesson of the day would be starting soon and there was no way he would get there in time to take it, but he could collect the homework if they had bothered to leave it and some enterprising student hadn't taken it upon themselves to erase his instructions. He opened his umbrella as he left the car, carefully holding his files out of the rain. Thankfully it was just dull, solid rain and no wind to unexpectedly sweep it under his umbrella and ruin his work.

Hisoka was still in the classroom, working.

He paused for a second in the door way, looking over speculatively, and then continued to his desk as though nothing was amiss. Hisoka didn't glance up or greet him. No one else had stayed behind, and the rest of the school seemed too quiet, as though they were somehow separate from the other thousands of students and staff around them. The rain outside was heavier now and the skies clouded over, casting a sullen greyish half-light that seemed to subdue even the fluorescent strip lighting inside the classroom. Tatsumi stood to wipe away the chalked instructions, and Hisoka finally glanced up. The yellow neon glow from the fluorescent lights above gave him a slightly surreal look, like a televised image with the contrast turned up too high. His blonde hair seemed unnaturally golden against the grey skies, his eyes too bright and slightly feverish. The bruise was already fading to yellow, but there was a new dark red scab on his lower lip that might be nothing more than a particularly bad cold sore.

"You could have gone home early, you know," Tatsumi said lightly, taking his seat again and beginning to look through the homework left on his desk.

"Yes," Hisoka said, returning his attention to his assignments. While he worked, his expression looked irritated rather than absorbed. His thin eyebrows were drawn together slightly, writing the answers with short, sharp strokes as though each unsolved equation aggravated him personally.

"Anything you're having trouble with?" Tatsumi asked. Now that he was here, he may as well do some teaching if it was required. Hisoka glanced up again, wearily.

"No," He said and watched Tatsumi impatiently, as though waiting for any further interruptions. Tatsumi nodded, letting the slight rudeness slide, and began marking the homework left on his desk. He flicked through the top few assignments until he found Hisoka's homework four sheets down, and went through it first.

"Your homework is marked. Do you want it back now?"

"I suppose," Hisoka didn't look up.

"Full marks," Tatsumi said as he crossed the room and held it out. Hisoka glanced up and took it from him without looking at the sheet. Tatsumi returned to his desk. "Do you enjoy maths then?"

"Not really," Hisoka said flatly. Tatsumi continued watching him, and after a moment he sighed and continued. "It just makes more sense than some of the other subjects,"

"Which subjects?"

"Creative writing. Music. Art. That kind of thing,"

Tatsumi nodded. He was remembering Watari's words, and he had a feeling that if he kept pressing he might get something. He wasn't even sure what he was trying for- a clue, some sign of interest, perhaps. Tatsumi was no counsellor.

"It's useless though," Hisoka finally said, prompted by Tatsumi's gaze as though waiting for more of an explanation. "I'll never have to work out any of these equations,"

"Maths can be applicable to real life," Tatsumi answered, with a slight frown as he considered it. "There are branches of maths examining aesthetics, encrypting languages, computer science.. even social interactions,"

"Social interactions?" Hisoka looked sceptical, and Tatsumi stood up, glad to have the conversation back on familiar grounds.

"Game theory," He told him. He turned to the board and sketched out a quick grid. "As an example.. oh, let's say this pencil of mine is made of solid gold. I want money, you want the pencil,"

Hisoka didn't acknowledge him, and he carried on regardless.

"So, you can post me the payment and I can post you the pencil. The problem is, we have two goals. There's the cooperative goal, in which we'd work together to get what we wanted. Overall, that's the best outcome. We both get what we want and everyone is happy. But individually? No. Wouldn't you rather have the pencil _and_ keep the payment?"

Hisoka shrugged. His expression clearly suggested this was a waste of his time.

"So you can choose to double-cross me, or to trust me and cooperate. The best outcome for the individual would be to successfully pull off a double-cross. We each separately choose how we will act, and so depending on the combinations of actions, there are four possible outcomes. We can assign a figure to represent the utility- or happiness- that we would get from each outcome. The actual figure doesn't matter at all, it's simply the relative amounts that matter,"

He sketched in the grid quickly.

"As you can see, a successful double-cross would give the highest individual payoff. If neither of us betrayed the other, we'd still get a good outcome each. But of course, if we _both_ tried for a double-cross, no one would benefit at all. Now apply that to international scales and matters such as nuclear arms, and can you see how serious it would get? Both sides end up armed and no one is safe,"

Hisoka was still watching, and he took that as a good sign.

"So people use it all the time. Some decide to always cooperate with others, and sometimes it works and sometimes people are taken advantage of. Some always act for themselves. The problem is, if they meet someone like themselves, both of them suffer,"

Hisoka frowned. "Surely it's best to adapt the response.."

"Correct!" Tatsumi said. "The most successful strategies are tit for tat- punishing your opponent when they act selfishly, and rewarding them with joint cooperation. Then there are harsher strategies, such as Grim Trigger- cooperating only so long as the opponent does, and then ceasing to cooperate with them again,"

"Wouldn't that ensure you always came off better?" Hisoka asked. "If someone does that once, they can do it twice. You're not going to be taken in again,"

"It depends what's most important to you- if that's always coming out better off than your opponent, then yes. In practise, it doesn't work so well in most situations," Tatsumi said. He paused, and then turned back to the board. "So you see- you really can quantify everything,"

Hisoka shrugged. Tatsumi wasn't too concerned. The boy was still watching even if he seemed outwardly disinterested, and he suspected he had got more of a response from Hisoka than most teachers had ever managed. Tatsumi wondered whether to push things.

"If you're interested in finding more, do consider taking the extra classes. Even if you're not certain what you plan to do after school, they'll help you with the regular work. I won't force you to take part, but I would be very pleased to see you there,"

There was a pause that went on too long, unbroken by any noises from the rest of the school. The dusty classroom air seemed too warm, the electric lights glowed too yellow and the world outside too dark, as though they were completely sealed away from the rest of the world. Hisoka was looking straight at Tatsumi for once, without his usual evasive expression. Instead, there was a strange, unreadable look about him as though he was slightly out of his depth here and unsure what to do. The acute green of his direct gaze was almost too intense, but Tatsumi didn't look away as he waited for a response.

"Class ended five minutes ago," Hisoka finally broke the silence. He moved his papers together and waited to be excused.

"Fine," Tatsumi said after a pause. "You may leave,"

He watched Hisoka go, a little disappointed. For a second, he thought he might be getting somewhere. Once he was alone, he stood and slowly cleaned the board, his chalked diagrams reduced to dust. It had been worth a try.

Tatsumi left the safe yellow glow of the classroom and walked back to his car without bothering to call by the teacher's lounge and see if anyone was around. Outside, it was dark enough to be late evening already. The weak afternoon sun had been completely obliterated by unbroken black cloud, low and moody with the promise of storms. Rain sluiced over his umbrella, distorting the world around him. It would be a slow drive home at this time, and then he would have to check on Tsuzuki before marking the homework he had collected today. He opened his car door and began stacking his files on the passenger seat.

"I'll do it,"

He turned around. Hisoka was there, still on the school grounds that bordered the car park. There was a temporary chain link fence installed after they had recently added a few more parking spaces, and his fingers were tangled in the links as he watched Tatsumi go. Hisoka's eyes blazed too green against the grey background and they didn't blink despite the rainwater streaming over him, muting the pale sandy light of his hair. The red scab breaking the line of his mouth looked darker and angrier in the dim light, and Tatsumi didn't think it was a cold sore any more.

"Hisoka?" He asked, bemused.

"I said I'll do it," His voice was hard and brittle, and it cut easily through the soft rush of afternoon traffic and rain washing down gutters. "I'll take the extra classes,"

"Thank you, Hisoka," Tatsumi said quietly. "I'm sure you'll enjoy them,"

Hisoka made a small, irritated sound, looking as though he grudged the gesture already. He seemed to ignore the rain breaking over him, although he had gone even paler than usual and his uniform had turned black and shining.

"Now go inside," Tatsumi told him. "Or go home. You shouldn't be out in this weather," He paused for a moment, and then collapsed his umbrella. The cool shock of rainwater hit him immediately and the world blurred as droplets beaded on his glasses and then ran together in a fine watery film. "Want to borrow this?"

"I'm fine," Hisoka, his eyes almost resentful and Tatsumi wondered what he kept doing wrong. Hisoka turned away, his back sharp and stiff and walked back towards the school, disappearing in the dim grey light. Tatsumi stood by the car and watched him go until he had faded altogether and he could hear nothing but the sullen, relentless patter of the rain.


	5. Chapter 5

Grim Trigger Complex

Author's Notes- This chapter was finished a while ago, but I was going to wait and upload it with the next since there's not much Hisoka in it. The relationship part will be starting soonish, but there's a lot of background I'd like to establish first, and I can't see either of them being the type to enter a relationship too quickly. The next part shouldn't be far behind anyway, most of the chapters are written to some extent.

Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

- - -

Tatsumi drove home in a strange, slightly disconnected mood, as though he had left some essential part of himself standing there in the rain. He was always a conscientious driver and today he still kept to the speed limits and maintained the correct distance between cars, but there was no real thought behind his actions. He felt as though his mind had came unplugged from the tangle of nerves and fibres that mechanically changed gears, checked mirrors and took turns, all as though the route home had been programmed into him. For once, he didn't automatically switch on the radio to listen first to the day's news, and then to a classical music station. It wasn't until he was half way home that he realised he was listening to nothing but the far away swish and roar of traffic, and the dull cadence of rain on the car roof.

It had been a thin, bitter sort of rain that seeped in deceptively quickly, but the car's heater was turned up full and soon his clothes were dry. The rain evaporated to leave nothing but a warm, damp scent Tatsumi somehow associated with wet cats, and a foggy layer of condensation over the windows. He cleared a swathe of glass in front of the steering wheel, but it was too dark to make out much anyway. He let the neon yellow glow of signs and car headlights guide him, and everything else just a dim blurry bulk in the darkness. It gave him a weird dreamy feeling that everyone else had disappeared, and that there was nothing really out there behind those splintery lights broken up by the rain. His own car seemed to float just above the shining black road, and only the thin spurting sounds of his wheels spraying up water told him otherwise.

Once he was home he parked up, changed clothes and phoned Tsuzuki, still running on autopilot. He asked the same questions without thinking about it. How was Tsuzuki? Had he eaten? Did he want to come over? Tsuzuki's voice had the petulant sound of a child kept up too late, which meant he had taken sleeping pills. It wasn't a particularly good sign, but it meant he would spend the night in a heavy, drugged sleep, and Tatsumi could relax.

For once, it was difficult to focus on his beloved work. Ordinarily, this would have aggravated him, but not tonight. It was a Friday, and there was no need at all to start working now, not when the whole weekend lay ahead of him with nothing else to do but keep Tsuzuki alive and go about his simple, daily routines. Tatsumi poured himself a drink and retrieved the newspaper. He had read through it in the teacher's lounge, but he always went through it again in the evening. Once to catch the essentials, twice to read each article in depth. It was difficult to even concentrate on that though.

Tsuzuki's behaviour was concerning him again. As planned, Tatsumi had spent the prior evening researching the possibility of outside help. Although he had briefly considered biology and the medical sciences when in school, it had always been pure mathematics that interested him, and psychiatry was not an area that he had investigated much. He had waded into the task with grim determination to ensure that he did the right thing. First, he had looked up the subtle differences between psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists, being only vaguely aware of the distinctions from his mother's own illness. Then he moved onto the finer details, considering whether Tsuzuki was troubled by some childhood trauma, or whether it was distorted thinking patterns or a deficit in some chemical that left his brain sputtering out faulty signals that never reached their destination. Did Tsuzuki need cognitive or behavioural therapies, or would he be better off with counselling, medication or psychoanalysis? Would he be best treated as an inpatient or at home? Tatsumi had a reasonable amount of savings set by and invested well, enough to keep Tsuzuki in a good hospital for some months before it made a substantial dent in his bank account.

In the end, he decided not to wade through all the advertised therapists and check their credentials one by one. He phoned one of the more prestigious hospitals in the area and left an enquiry about finding a psychiatrist, stressing the word slightly. If Tatsumi was to seek help for Tsuzuki, he would rather take a trained doctor. He still vaguely associated psychology with Freudian concepts, with dream analysis and strange childhood complexes and people sat in a circle discussing their neuroses. The receptionist had taken his details and promised someone would get in touch.

Someone did get in touch, only an hour or so after he had arrived home the next day. He glanced up, mildly startled that the phone had rang at this hour, and then realised it was only six in the evening.

"Good afternoon," The voice was silky and cultured. It purred out from the handset, perfectly clear despite the background distortion from the stormy weather outside. "This is Dr Muraki speaking. I believe you enquired about psychiatric treatment yesterday?"

"I did," Tatsumi said, reaching for a notepad in case he needed to take down addresses or phone numbers. He always kept a notepad, an address book and at least three black biros besides the phone.

"Your enquiry was forwarded to the psychiatric unit. Before recommending a particular doctor, I have to ask- have you been previously diagnosed or treated for anything in particular?"

"No," Tatsumi said. "I'm looking for a doctor to see a friend. I don't believe he's received any treatment before,"

"I see. Well, that's very charitable of you, Mr Tatsumi. I would like to meet and discuss things further before passing on any further details. Psychiatry requires highly individual treatment, you understand, and I wouldn't dream of assigning just anyone to treat your friend. I believe that reaching the _exact_, perfect interplay between patient and doctor is absolutely imperative to making a full recovery,"

"I understand," Tatsumi had said, writing down the address he was given.

Muraki had suggested meeting in a small cafe. The name of the place was familiar, although he had never been there before. It was an expensive area, despite being within walking distance of his own modest home. It was also just streets from Hisoka's own address, which Tatsumi had looked it up the day before. He needed permission from Hisoka's parents to allow their son to take additional classes, and he had been planning to send the same letter he had already prepared for the other four students he had recruited so far. But since he was in the area, it might not be a bad idea to call in personally to deliver it and talk things over with them. It wasn't unusual at all for high school teachers to make home visits if a student was absent or their academic progress needed discussing, and it may give him more insight into Hisoka. He considered it, his newspaper forgotten.

A small, aggravated meow disturbed his thoughts, barely audible over the sound of the wind. Tatsumi opened the window and leaned out into cool spray that reminded him of the ocean. It was a wild night, and lashing breezes swept the rain-soaked, jungle-scented air into his neat living room, sending his newspaper fluttering to the floor. Something black and lean detached itself from the shadowy world under the bushes, and streaked across his garden. He saw one baleful yellow eye and stepped aside as the cat leapt neatly through the opened window.

She lead the way into the kitchen, a trail of damp paw-prints darkening his carpet, and jumped onto the table. Before turning to sweep her off, he opened one of the drawers and found a blister pack of flea drops. The date they were last administered was pencilled on the cardboard back, six weeks ago and due for another dose. Tatsumi broke the foil and twisted the cap from one of the little vials, wondering as always how they could justify this price for half a teaspoon of chemicals. He stroked the cat, and as her spine arched up to meet his hand, squeezed out the contents of the capsule between the tiny sharp triangles of her shoulder blades. Her back flattened slightly at the damp touch, and she slid out from under his hand and back to the floor.

The cat showed up every now and then, sometimes staying around the house for a month and sometimes not returning for weeks. Tatsumi had found her wet and starved with a go-to-hell look in her single open eye, splayed miserably on her side under a bush in his garden. He carried her into the house, fed her, found her a basket, and in gratitude she had laid his hand open twice and stayed there for a week anyway. Half her tail was gone, both ears were shredded and one eye was occasionally closed over, but he had never been able to keep the cat indoors permanently. When she showed up, he fed and defleaed her, and waited until she was either killed or grew old and settled down into the sedate life of a housecat.

Tsuzuki was enchanted with the cat and had cursed it with any number of unlikely names, but Tatsumi had never called her anything. He wasn't a sentimental man, although he always opened the window when it meowed and had dutifully paid the vet bills for shots, a course of antibiotics and spaying that had came just in time to remove a row of tiny, unborn kittens.

Once the cat was fed, she returned to the living room, picking her way delicately across the floor as though walking on snow. Tatsumi watched as it settled back into the chair he had been occupying and fell asleep with her nose tucked under the stumpy half tail, a rusty unused purr throbbing up through her chest like unoiled machinery. He retrieved his newspaper and made his way to the kitchen instead. It was only seven, but he had been reading for just two hours before he gave up for the night. The odd, unplugged feeling had persisted, and tomorrow he had the meeting with Muraki and perhaps Hisoka's parents to prepare himself for.

- - -

Tatsumi woke up at half six as usual, although he had dutifully set his alarm back an hour in acknowledgement of the weekend, and the muddy, morning light was too weak to have woken him. He lay there for a moment, still in the foggy state where he could slip back into sleep easily. There was no particular need to get up now, and his thoughts for the day drifted lazily across his mind as he listened to the rain. The wind had died down, but he could still hear the dull constant drum and rush of it beating down on the roof and sluicing down the gutters. He dreamily wondered where it all went. Some dark and damp places, he expected, pipes widening into tunnels that probably looked a little like the cellar in his old family home. He thought briefly of stained stone bleeding rusty water, of unwanted things packed down there in damp softening boxes and left to swell and rot into one shapeless entity, and for some reason these thoughts troubled him. He let them slip away easily.

Strangely, it was Hisoka that came to him next while he dozed there, on the edge of unconsciousness. They weren't the usual coherent thoughts he'd considered when he thought about Hisoka. Those were concepts he saw in black and white print as though reading through his teaching guides again. _Delinquency_. _Home Issues. Deviant Behaviours. _They might be troubling, but they came with a guide on how to deal with them and who to contact.

These thoughts were dim and fragmented easily as he turned them over in his mind. Nothing more than half-formed images, and perhaps just the fading residue from some dreams. Indolent, distant eyes- a less educated man might have automatically thought of emeralds, but although the brittle, cold fire was right, the clarity was not and it was the unreadable colour of dark malachite that Tatsumi pictured first. A listless, green look sweeping across a classroom with all the enthusiasm of a tired autumn breeze, as though students, desks and teacher were not there at all. Hair like pale, fine sand washing under clear sea water, and it would run fluid between fingers as though spun from air.

Tatsumi's dreams didn't take him, and the images broke up without forming any memories, replaced by more mundane thoughts. When it became clear he was awake for good, he began to stir. Without his glasses, the red numbers on his alarm clock fuzzed together, and he rolled closer to read it. The cat fled from where she had crept in to occupy the furthest corner of the bed, pressed as close as she dared.

He dressed slowly, in one of his customary suits. Tatsumi never found the clothes restrictive. It was in unstructured clothes that he felt uncomfortable, in loose T-shirts and sports jackets and casual trainers. He suspected he looked as out of place as he felt in those sorts of outfits, his hair too neat, his glasses too expensive and his expression too sober to ever look truly casual.

When Tatsumi reached the cafe a few hours later, he suspected Muraki was a similar sort of person. Although he had given no physical description, he was identifiable immediately. The cafe was a bright, hypermodern place with white furniture and bluish lights and trendy minimalist photos sparsely placed on the walls, but Muraki still stood out even dressed in pure white. He even looked like a doctor, although upon a second glance Tatsumi realised Muraki wasn't wearing hospital whites, but a tailored suit. He was talking to a waitress, a thoroughly charmed young lady by the look of her, but he glanced up as Tatsumi approached.

"Good afternoon," Muraki stood up. His hand felt too cool and it whispered dryly against Tatsumi's hand like chilled silk. Up close, it was impossible to place the doctor's age. His single, visible eye was a pale grey and his hair was a pure, unbroken silver, but his colouring didn't look faded so much as bleached.

They took a seat. The table was too small, a square of opaque glass little bigger than a newspaper propped on spindly legs. Tatsumi liked to keep his own personal space, and he wasn't comfortable sat with so little between them.

"I took the liberty of ordering. I do hope you don't mind,"

He did, and the coffee was far too sweet for Tatsumi. Coffee was always a strictly functional drink for him, always associated with nights spent in the university library or working over accounts. Underneath the milky foam and flavoured syrups, it was still the same sludge he had lived on as an undergraduate.

"Could you describe the symptoms?" Muraki asked, once the usual pleasantries were out the way.

Tatsumi paused. He felt slightly uncomfortable talking about Tsuzuki like this. He was an intensely private person himself, and he had vague ideas about concepts like _doctor-patient confidentiality_ that he didn't want to violate. Whenever he thought about Tsuzuki, there was always an undercurrent to his thoughts that maybe something was _wrong_ about Tsuzuki, something that shouldn't be voiced in a cafe like this, but kept in locked filing cabinets under a patient referral number.

"Don't worry," Muraki said blandly. "We're here to help,"

Tatsumi had a distinct feeling that Muraki didn't like him. If he didn't, then the doctor was a flawless liar. His voice was easy and relaxed and his expression suggested nothing but concern and professionalism, but there was something watchful just behind his features that Tatsumi didn't so much see as sense. It was nothing he could quite name- an eyebrow raised fractionally, a tightening in the jaw, a sharp watchful look in his silvery eye, all just in the edge of Tatsumi's peripheral vision.

He described the symptoms anyway. The long stretches of depression, and the strange delusions Tsuzuki had about his own behaviour. Tatsumi hesitated before describing the suicide attempts. He had a feeling that a doctor could hospitalise someone against their will for such behaviours.

"I don't think you've sought help a minute too soon," Muraki said, once Tatsumi was finished.

"So what do you think might be wrong?" Tatsumi asked. From his research, he knew it took a while to diagnose someone. A number of criteria had to be checked off, the symptoms had to take place over a certain duration, and the patient's ability to cope with their life assessed.

"Well," Muraki said. "It's impossible to say without a full range of tests. But from your story, your friend certainly suffers severe- almost _crippling-_ depression. There could be more than depression, of course. Those delusions may be a sign of something more,"

"Schizophrenia?" Tatsumi asked. The thought had always been at the back of his mind since he had met Tsuzuki, and he realised this was the first time he had spoken it out loud.

He didn't like the word, not once he'd heard its literal meaning. _Split mind_, _shattered mind_, translate it however you liked and it was still a harsh, brutal way to describe an illness. He thought about a documentary he had seen some months ago following schizophrenics. Two of the patients followed had seemed perfectly normal when medicated, laughing self-consciously as they described hearing meetings from the Pentagon or the Kremlin in their head, or painting their house windows black in the depths of a delusion. One had been a mother with three perfectly normal children (the eldest rolling her eyes when questioned about her mother's illness, shrugging it off as though it was nothing against the other concerns of an eight year old girl) and the other had been a salaryman holding down a steady job.

But one of them had been an ordinary young man, just around Tsuzuki's age, who had suddenly and spectacularly deteriorated into unreachable catatonia. They had shown scans, schizophrenic overlaying a normal adult brain, and the black shadows of enlarged ventricles came back to Tatsumi. It didn't matter that they'd explained ventricles were a normal part of brain anatomy. In schizophrenics too much of their mind had been replaced by fluid-filled, empty spaces where healthy tissue had atrophied away forever.

Muraki tilted his head slightly, giving Tatsumi a speculative look. "Perhaps. It's difficult to say. Many severely depressed patients suffer delusions that go away entirely once their life is back on track,"

Tatsumi thought about fatal dosages exceeded three times over, about peeling away limp red bandages and finding a blackish scab bridging a wound that had laid Tsuzuki's wrist open to the bone just hours before, about certain _inconsistencies_ in Tsuzuki's stories regarding his age. But he said nothing and sipped his coffee mildly. Vanilla and sugar flooded his mouth.

"Do you think there's anything that can be done?" He prompted Muraki, who still had that speculative look.

"Very few people are beyond help, Mr Tatsumi," Muraki said. "In fact, I'd be interested in treating your friend myself- I'm a busy man, but I do personally take on a few cases wherever I can. If you'd like to come and look at our premises, I can show you where Mr Tsuzuki would be treated-"

"I'd rather not hospitalise him just yet," Tatsumi broke in, as politely as he could. Tsuzuki didn't have much, but he had his apartment, his friends and the volunteer work he carried out when he could. Tatsumi could already picture the hurt look in Tsuzuki's eyes if his friend signed away his freedom.

"I see," Muraki's expression had gone rather more calculating, although his voice held a syrupy, regretful sort of sympathy, the sort meant to imply that of course it was Tatsumi's choice, but it would only hurt Tsuzuki in the end. "An intensive course of therapy in a controlled environment is often for the best, Mr Tatsumi, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to jeoparise Tsuzuki's health-"

"No. If it's neccessary, I'll sign the papers," Tatsumi said. "If you need two signatures, I believe my friend Watari will sign- he's a doctor himself, and he's well acquainted with Tsuzuki. But for now, I'd rather discuss things with Tsuzuki. I know him, and I don't believe he'd take it well if I went behind his back,"

"Very well," Muraki acknowledged him. His mouth had gone thinner, and Tatsumi thought of the delicate, tissue-fine edge of a scalpel. Psychiatrists were doctors after all. They could do things that psychologists couldn't.

He thought back to that documentary again. Pills were alright by him, they had explained that schizophrenics weren't simply _sedated_ and that depressed patients weren't running on artificial sunshine, that medication was only there to restore a natural balance. Tatsumi could accept that. You took pills if you had a shortage of iron, or an excess of acid, so why not these mysterious chemicals like _dopamine_ and _serotonin_? He could even look past the way that the doctor admitted they didn't know how medication worked, that no one really understood what caused most mental illnesses at all. Tatsumi had always vaguely remembered that depression was a deficiency in serotonin, but the doctor had said that it didn't look so simple after all, that the simple serotonin theory had been thrown out the window years ago and they were still dutifully filling out prescriptions with no idea what they really did.

No, it wasn't the medication that troubled him. It was the other things that psychiatrists could prescribe. There was electroconvulsive therapy, and no one knew how that worked either. They knew that if you flooded someone's brain with sizzling white fire, they recovered temporarily and sometimes permanently, but no one knew what damage it did, whether it was the equivalent of hooking a couple of jump start cables to a dying battery, or if it destroyed things irreversibly.

And then there was surgery.

He'd seen something on the history of that too, right from good old Phineas Gage, that poor bastard. He was unlucky enough to get an iron bar blown through his skull and make doctors realise that jamming an icepick up someone's eyesocket would either cure them or turn them into one of thousands of lobotomised zombies, some of them still shuffling through care homes today. It had shook his faith in his country a little to discover that in Japan, most of the lobotomies had been carried out on children, often for nothing more than poor school performances or delinquent behaviour.

Of course, they'd stressed that today psychosurgery was an absolute last resort, that only a handful of them were ever carried out and only once everything else had failed and the patient's quality of life was completely gone. It didn't stop him thinking about Tsuzuki's eyes gone as flat as the faded purple glass in an old church window.

An appointment was made to take Tsuzuki to the hospital soon for assessment. Tatsumi waited for a few minutes after Muraki had left, stirring the sugary sediment at the bottom of his coffee, but not really drinking it. It was early afternoon now, and he suspected that at least Hisoka's mother would be at home. Perhaps the father too- he was certainly wealthy enough to take the weekends off if he wished.

When he left, he noticed the rain had started again.

The Kurosakis' house wasn't far away. He idled past in the car, wondering if anyone was in. The gates were open, but the house looked quiet and no lights showed in any of the windows. Of course, it was only early afternoon, but the sky was dark with rain and most of the neighbours had yellowish electric light showing in a window or two. He didn't want to drive up to the house for some reason, and instead he parked around the corner and walked through the gates. The gardens would be beautiful on a sunny day, but now the flowers were darkened like wet tissue paper, and the lawn turned grey with muddy pools of water.

She answered the door. His first thought was that she was far too young to be Hisoka's mother, and his second thought that she shared too many of his features to be anyone else. Her hair was a glossy blue-black and her eyes deep brown, but aside from their colouring, they were clearly mother and son. They had the same pale, bloodless complexion touched bluish at the temples, the same heavy dusting of dark lashes over tragic Disney eyes that somehow didn't hold a trace of naivety, the same features- fine, but sharp, like the edge of a razorblade. Her expression should have looked as friendly and open as any reserved, wealthy lady ever could, but there was something that underlaid her, as though her fine features were wrought in steel. It was the same look Hisoka had, that unnerved his teachers so much.

"Good afternoon," He greeted her. "I apologise for calling around unexpectedly, but I was in the area. My name is Mr Tatsumi- I take your son for maths,"

"I'm pleased to meet you, Mr Tatsumi," There was the faintest furrow between her shaped brows, smoothed out almost before it had formed. "Please come in,"

He followed her into the house, which was beautifully decorated, but rather lifeless. The excessive order did not strike Tatsumi as odd. His own, modest bachelor home was just as obsessively neat, and he expected they would have some sort of domestic help. He could not see Mrs Kurosaki's slim, manicured hands tidying away the disorder left by a husband and a teenage son. However, he did notice there was no sign of Hisoka's existence at all, save for a stiff, posed portrait framed to the side of the living room she left him in. Tatsumi examined it briefly in her absence. By the height and the soft roundness his features had yet to emerge from, he placed Hisoka as being eleven or twelve. His eyes already had a catlike watchfulness about them.

Mrs Kurosaki returned with her husband and said she would leave them to talk, dipping her sleek head. The lights flashed on her hair, metallic blue like a crow's wing. The colour was too brilliant to have come from anything but a bottle. He felt a faint stirring of something that wasn't quite pity, perhaps a faint regret at seeing the inevitable decline of beauty. She couldn't be forty yet, and already age was beginning to steal away her looks.

"I would like to talk to both of you, if possible," Tatsumi said, and she stayed.

"Is Hisoka in any trouble?" Mr Kurosaki asked. His voice was mild and slightly puzzled, like any other concerned father. Tatsumi still had a feeling that Kurosaki would be a dangerous man to cross.

"Not at all," Tatsumi said. "In fact, your son's maths performance is exceptional. I was simply looking to enroll him in extra classes. For students of above-average ability, these can significantly increase exam performance, and extracurricular projects always look impressive on university applications. Parental permission is required, of course, and since I was in the area, I thought I would discuss it with you in person,"

"That shouldn't be any problem at all," Mrs Kurosaki murmured demurely. But her catlike eyes didn't match, and he thought of claws sank into velvety paws.

"Is Hisoka here?" He asked. Mrs Kurosaki glanced quickly at her husband.

"No," Mr Kurosaki said, after a pause so fractional that Tatsumi may have imagined it altogether. "Kyudo lessons,"

For a moment, Tatsumi was reminded of those idiotic American horror films he had seen at university, where groups of teenagers would stumble across some isolated little town or other full of close-mouthed, suspicious locals inevitably hiding some terrible secret. Except the idea of the Kurosakis having a basement full of corpses was so incongruous it was almost comical. They were an old family, and old ways died hard. They couldn't help the natural reserved manner bred into them, even if it came across as cold towards outsiders.

But it was still difficult to picture someone who was little more than a child living in a house like this.

There was a distant sound from beneath the floor, something wet and dull like swollen cardboard boxes being knocked to a stone floor. It could be nothing at all. Perhaps a woman Mrs Kurosaki hired to do laundry had dropped a fresh load of damp washing on top of the dryer. It could be the gardener, storing some piece of equipment or other. It could even be a noise from some ancient heating system. It was a perfectly innocuous sound. Even if Hisoka _was_ down there, it didn't mean anything. Plenty of parents converted their attic or cellars into an extra room and plenty of teenage boys preferred to keep out of the way of their parents. Tatsumi didn't know why he found it so ominous.

Perhaps it was the look in Mr Kurosaki's eyes, or the way his wife's hands suddenly twisted in her silk kimono.

After that tiny slip, they fluidly picked up conversation again, like actors who had missed a cue and pretended nothing had gone wrong. The show must go on. The acting comparison wasn't a bad one, when he thought about it. Anyone looking at this frozen tableau would see nothing amiss. There were the three, attractive actors, their expressions a little too neutral, but held as perfectly in place as kabuki makeup There was the setting, an expensive old home, and here was the plot, a form waiting to be signed on a low table. It wasn't until you suspected something might be wrong behind the scenes, and then everything began to seem a little unreal.

Did they suspect something was amiss themselves? Tatsumi knew his performance was flawless, but families like those described in his teaching guide were naturally suspicious about others, especially people seen as being authority figures of some kind. They might take any sign of outside interference as snooping, wondering if Hisoka was somehow arousing interest. First come the teachers, then the social workers, and then the court cases.

He finished up quickly, and was grateful to leave, the signed form in his pocket. The Kurosakis handled his departure gracefully, apologising for Hisoka's absence and thanking Tatsumi for taking the time to visit. Outside, it was too warm and humid, but after the oppressive atmosphere in that house, it felt as fresh as the crackling, cleared air after a storm. Mrs Kurosaki shook his hand as he stepped out into the heavy damp afternoon. He felt the cool pressure from two obviously antique rings, but he also felt the softness of delicate skin just beginning to crumple like tissue paper. There was a lot you could do about wrinkles around the eyes or mouth, but you couldn't paint over this.

They watched him go, and he was half way down the driveway before he realised he hadn't stopped to open his umbrella. The rain was light, but the humid, saturated air was beginning to turn his suit limp already. Tatsumi glanced around briefly once he'd reached the gates. The Kurosakis had retreated back inside, and the house had that same strange, lifeless look about it, even though there was no sign of neglect about it. Something slammed inside it, just a door. It was an innocuous enough sound, except he couldn't see any dignified, wealthy couple raised to have impeccable manners ever slamming a door unless they were very, very angry.

On Monday, a fresh bruise overlaid the fading smudge on Hisoka's cheekbone, and two fingers were splinted together.


	6. Chapter 6

Grim Trigger Complex

Author's Notes- REVIEWS! Glee! I've been reviewing-dancing a lot recently over some of these. Sorry it's taken a while to update- I was going to upload these next two together since the slash starts properly in the next chapter, but since it took a few weeks to write this one, I thought I'd better get it up now. Things should calm down soon, and there's no reason why this won't be finished in a couple of months- all the chapters are written to some extent and I know exactly where it's going and how it's ending.

I haven't finished the manga, but I know there's a bit of controversy over exactly why Tatsumi feels guilty about his mother and whether he simply feels he didn't do enough or if he actually killed her. I don't know whether this was ever resolved in a later volume, but although this is anime-based, I thought it was quite interesting and worked a version of it into the story.

Oh, and I think any minor grammar issues have mostly been fixed- the only things I've caught were the dialogue problems (I hope that's it- I study all science subjects and haven't had to write dialogue in assessed work for five or six years)

Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

Tatsumi noticed the injuries almost immediately.

He didn't usually pay much attention to students' appearances. They were young, rebellious and had plenty of money to waste, and so he was used to the changing hairstyles and accessories as they tried to subtly evade school rules or gave in to current trends. The natural oil-slick black of a boy's hair bleached to orange and brown one week, a flash of neon blue showing underneath a girl's heavy ponytail the next, or an antique silver crucifix giving way to rows of cheap plastic bracelets. They got into fights with other, rougher schools, or scraped their knees and sprained their wrists in gym classes or playing for the schools' sports teams, and it was unlikely that he'd notice a new bandage or bruise on most of them. But Tatsumi had found himself preoccupied by thoughts of Hisoka a lot recently, and it was beginning to worry him.

It wasn't anything conscious. Thoughts drifted unwanted into his mind at the strangest times, when he was on the brink of sleep and he'd see the indifferent curve of Hisoka's profile stamped blood-red against his eyelids, or he would be washing up dishes and suddenly he'd see the precise green of Hisoka's eyes swimming in iridescent soap bubbles. Small things, but things he couldn't easily dismiss.

Of course, it was just concern. Tatsumi was always preoccupied with problems in this way. He worried at them constantly, until he could break them down into something he could answer. Anything unresolved was impossible to forget about, whether it was some particularly difficult books he needed to balance, or one of Tsuzuki's occasional breakdowns. And it wasn't as if it _would_ make him a paedophile anyway. Tatsumi was only in his twenties-

(thirty next year)

-and Hisoka was in his late teens, almost an adult, really

(sixteen, and if he was one year younger and Tatsumi one year older, that would be _half_ Tatsumi's age)

-although technically Tatsumi was almost old enough to be Hisoka's father, if he hadn't came from such a respectable family. But he wasn't that sort of person, and Tatsumi dismissed the thoughts once more as he worked through his Monday lessons. He would see Hisoka later anyway. His class didn't have a maths lesson today, but the first of the extra classes was scheduled for after school today. He could see for himself if anything was wrong, or if he'd let his imagination run away with him for perhaps the first time in almost thirty years.

His last class of the day filtered out slowly, the dull white noise of students in the corridors rising and drowning out the sound of the rain. For the first time, Tatsumi noticed how the rain's listless cadence had so easily became a constant background in his life. It had barely been a week, and already he was used to the unchanging flat grey light and the lethargic choke and gurgle of storm drains coughing up mouthfuls of iron-coloured water. It was inconsequential. The rain couldn't go on much longer, even as he crossed over to the windows to open them and clear some of the dusty classroom air, and noticed the skies were still choked with clouds so heavy they seemed to have coagulated.

As the sounds of chatter began to die and fade down emptying corridors, he cleared the blackboard, ruthlessly swiping row upon row of equations to chalk dust. Hisoka was the first to arrive, perhaps less due to enthusiasm than from being dismissed early. The class before was gym, and Tatsumi seemed to remember that Hisoka's frequent headaches excused him from participating. He walked slowly across the room without greeting Tatsumi, taking his usual seat. He waited silently while the others arrived, staring into slate skies the same lifeless grey as high-rise buildings and motorway overpasses.

There was the anorexic girl (_Ayame_, Tatsumi corrected himself), Mamoru, a rather anonymous looking boy he had barely noticed apart from his exceptional grades, and Tsubaki, a sweet, eager girl from one of his other classes. He'd heard the staff mockingly refer to her as 'Princess', but despite her privileged background and the weak constitution that caused her to miss many lessons, she worked hard and had kept up admiringly.

Tatsumi had decided to spend half the lessons following on from the basic theories explored in classes, and the remaining half dedicated to their own topics of interest. Today, it took close to half the lesson to simply run through the plans he had for the next few weeks and discuss a few potential topics they may be interested in exploring themselves. Another fifteen minutes was spent taking the classroom subjects to a more advanced level, and for the remainder he left them to read through the prepared handouts and start on a few exercises. Hisoka's injury didn't seem to bother him much. He changed hand and continued working, a little slower to keep his lines of stacked equations as sharp and clear as if etched in razor. Tatsumi watched him for a moment, but there was no sign that anything was amiss. Occasionally, Hisoka would look up, slow and deliberate, and give Tatsumi an irritated look upon finding the teacher was still watching him.

Tatsumi let his mind drift slightly as the four of them worked. He had marked all homework for today, and he flicked through the pile without really reading it. His eyes unfocused, and the equations began to blur and appeared to lift from the paper. It reminded him of those Magic Eye puzzles that had been so popular a few years back, but there was no hidden image rising from here. That was why he had always liked maths. Tatsumi had been an adept student at every subject he had taken, but he had little patience with literature or art. Sometimes he thought a pretty picture was just a pretty picture, and there was no need to keep searching for underlying metaphors or meanings to enjoy it.

When he was younger, he'd particularly enjoyed a book of illustrated stories he'd found unwanted and unloved in his sister's bookcase. The stories there were the sort of fantasy that intrigued even Tatsumi, who had been the sort of clever, stolid child who preferred to build Meccano models rather than hear about fairy stories. There was also a lot of violence in these stories and the illustrated pictures, and it felt vaguely thrilling to read something that was obviously meant for an adult. He'd struggled through the book at the early age of seven, and then a year later he had finally connected the characters to the dim concept that he had of Christianity. Tatsumi had tried to re-read the stories later, but it was never the same again. He always felt vaguely betrayed after that, that a story had been a metaphor and a lesson all along.

The weather had calmed down, and the rain beat monotonously against the roof without enthusiasm. The sounds blended with the drone and buzz of strip lighting, and the occasional riffling of paper. There was little to occupy his mind, and as it often did at times like this, he thought about Tsuzuki, and before him, Tatsumi's mother. Neither subject was something he wanted to consider, but he couldn't stop himself turning the thoughts over like an old, raw wound he kept picking at.

After all, Tatsumi had been responsible for her death.

As always, remembering this was a sudden, sharp shock, something too incongruous to be true. The knowledge that he had been indirectly responsible was always in the back of his mind, but it was a tiny revelation every time he consciously thought about it, that someone like _Tatsumi_ would do something so unlikely. Everyone else had seen it as a simple, straightforward suicide, and they'd never questioned how she had managed to find and swallow almost a hundred pills. She had been a grown woman who lived alone, and depressed or not, she would have undeniably had access to her own medications. The cupboard had a key lock on the door, but then so did most medicine cupboards. It was a simple measure to keep children out of there, one that most people ignored and eventually lost the key to, but no one except Tatsumi had known that only he had kept the keys and the cupboard _had_ been locked.

It was nonsense, of course. If she had truly wanted to kill herself, even a fifty year old woman would have no trouble at all getting into that cupboard. It was a flimsy thing made from plywood, with a mirrored door and cheap hinges that would have fallen apart with a couple of blows from any household object. Locking it had been nothing more than a token gesture that wouldn't keep out a determined ten year old. It may have been pure coincidence that she chose that day to die. Or perhaps, that token gesture had been enough after all.

Tatsumi had unlocked it twice a day. He came to the house in the morning and evening, and so long as he had held the key, it had been enough to stop her. The key was still back home, in the top drawer in his office. There were a few others there, all labelled and sorted on key rings. This was the only loose key, a cheap bit of flattened metal no more secure than the key to a child's diary or toy jewellery box. He could snap it without effort if he tried. It seemed impossible that this could have ever stood between anyone and their death.

He had left it unlocked one night, and still couldn't say precisely why. She had been sobbing monotonously on the sofa all evening, the worn-down sound of a tired child kept up too long. He mechanically tidied the house, brought her pills downstairs and cooked a meal she had left untouched. Before leaving, Tatsumi had gone back upstairs to the medicine cupboard and replaced the antidepressants. Most of the medications had been there since he was a child. She had kept the cupboard well stocked then, but over the years she had neglected it. There were the same dusty orange vitamin pills he had taken as a child, spilling carelessly from a bottle with a faded cartoon character decorating the label. They had been there so long that when he swept them aside, clear spots showed in the dust beneath where they lay. There were bottles full of liquid antibiotics and cough syrups, their contents congealed to orange gels that had once tasted of artificial bananas. He frowned and moved aside plasters with a TV character he or his sister had once cared about printed across their surface, some yellowing bandages for binding a sprained ankle, punctured primrose oil capsules still tacky to the touch. Tatsumi made a note to clear out these years of accumulated debris as he replaced the bottle of antidepressants and shut the door.

He stared at his own reflection in the glass, broken in half by the two doors closing in the mirror, and slipped the key into his pocket without locking it.

She started taking the painkillers before the antidepressants. They were paracetamol, and when he heard, Tatsumi silently thought it was perhaps for the best that there had only been fifteen. Paracetamol did not bring a quick or easy death. There had been plenty of the antidepressants, and the rest had been those ridiculous childrens' vitamins. Before leaving the house for the last time, he'd checked the empty bottle and thought, with a twinge of something that wasn't as far from humour as he'd like, that it might have been the vitamin pills that finished her off in the end. Iron is toxic in large amounts.

Years had passed, and Tatsumi still couldn't say why he had done it. Perhaps it was for the same reason that he'd sometimes stay in his house, knowing that Tsuzuki was in a bad way and that there was an excellent chance he would take an overdose or lay open an artery. Tatsumi did not look forward to the day when he'd be one of the few mourners at Tsuzuki's funeral, but more than that, he feared the day when he brought Tsuzuki back from the emergency room in a heavy accusatory silence, and saw only resentment in Tsuzuki's eyes.

Tsuzuki was a grown man who could make his own decisions, but thinking about all the ways he could end himself gave Tatsumi a painful, oddly regretful twinge deep down, as though Tsuzuki was already dead. In a way, he had already mourned for him within those first few months they had known each other. Tatsumi wasn't a blind optimist, and it was better to face the worst possibility now than to hope Tsuzuki would make a miraculous recovery, only to be disappointed.

There was the faint reassurance that Tsuzuki had yet to succeed, that there might be some kind of _anomaly_ that kept him going. But if so, it was only delaying the inevitable, and here under the bright classroom lights it was difficult to believe there really was something difference about him that kept Tsuzuki alive. After all, it wasn't so surprising that someone could keep surviving overdoses or cutting their wrists. Both were notoriously unreliable methods and humans were wonderfully resilient things. It took a lot to shut down someone completely- he'd heard the liver could completely regenerate from just a quarter of its original mass. But there were only so many times someone could keep it up before their organs gave in. Overdosing could wreak havoc inside someone. He pictured ribbons of scar tissue, running stiff and fibrous through smooth glossy tissue until it strangled it, seizures causing brain cells to sputter out like a shorted fuse, a long slow death on a dialysis machine. Or bleeding- there must be some point when the blood was running out faster than Tsuzuki could regenerate it. What if he cut through two or three major arteries, or directly opened the ventricles of his inexplicable heart? Then there were the other, more brutal methods. He'd heard jumping in front of those high speed trains would liquidise someone. What about if he got a gun? Tatsumi had heard of people surviving being shot point blank with bullets- much of the brain was surprisingly optional- but what if Tsuzuki got a shotgun and blew away half his head? He wouldn't bring him back from the emergency room that time.

There was a faint, anguished sound. Tatsumi glanced up, his mind moving smoothly back to the classroom situation, and was surprised to see it was Hisoka. His pen lay forgotten in front of him, bleeding drops of black ink over his work. His head was resting against the palm of one hand, fingertips pressed into his temples and eyes closed, the delicate tissue around them crumpled with pain.

"Hisoka?" He asked, standing up sharply and all daydreams gone. The other students looked up with mild curiosity. Hisoka didn't respond at all. The classroom fell silent, so quiet he heard the sudden rough whisper of bandages on wood as some involuntary tremor jerked sharply through Hisoka. His pen skittered away, falling to the floor with a small sound that made Ayame flinch.

_..I've told his parents that they should rule out the worst possibilities first_

Just before he touched him, Tatsumi had a sudden feeling he would close his hands and his fingers would go straight through, like trying to catch smoke. For a second, Hisoka looked too pale to be anything except a trick of the light, colourless save for the purple shadow on his cheek blooming like a flower under the fluorescent lights. But Hisoka was real, his shoulder all acute lines and angles from bones that seemed to be loosely bundled together like sticks, with little between them to bind them together.

Hisoka finally moved, dark lashes snapping open like the delicate cilia around a Venus flytrap to show dilated pupils. There was a dull clatter as his chair went over as he threw himself away from Tatsumi, staggering back two steps before banging into the table behind him. Hisoka stayed upright somehow, his injured hand propped against the table to keep his balance and head bowed

"_Don't_.." Hisoka breathed deep, the words clearly coming hard. Tatsumi couldn't see much of his face now it was thrown into shadows beneath his tousled blonde hair. "Don't touch me."

Of course you don't touch students. That was the most important rule. Teachers who grabbed a student opened themselves up to all kinds of law suits, even if they just grabbed a wrist in a playground fight. The slightest sign of roughness, as little as a red mark on their arm, and your career was over. Tatsumi drew back as though he had cut himself on the sharp edge of Hisoka's collar bones.

"I'll be alright," Hisoka mumbled, his breath fluttering quick and rapid in the dead silence, and the words were distorted as though he had been anaesthetised. All sorts of unpleasant possibilities ran through Tatsumi's mind- a tumour, epilepsy, even a minor stroke. He was half way back to his desk to find his mobile phone and call an ambulance when Tsubaki stopped him.

"Excuse me?" she said, her voice uncertain. "Mr Tatsumi?"

"Just collect your things and you may leave early," he said, continuing past her. "Everything is fine."

"Hisoka's been like this before," she said, still looking unsure. "He usually just goes to the school doctor."

"Yes," Hisoka opened his eyes slowly. There was an odd, fractured look about them, his head turned towards Tatsumi but his gaze unfocused and glassy. "I'm fine."

Tatsumi glanced at his phone, uncertain, and then shut his suitcase again. "Then the rest of you are dismissed," he said, although they were already gathering their work to leave. To their credit, not one of the students had stared or laughed at Hisoka, and he was grateful. In his own high school, there had been an epileptic boy and few had been kind when the signals in his head had jammed up and left him shaking helplessly on the floor.

Hisoka was trying to gather his things too, fumbling for them clumsily as though he couldn't see the table. Tatsumi swept them just beyond his reach. "Come on," he told Hisoka, when the boy turned a resentful gaze on him, the bitter green of wormwood bright under the classroom lights. But he didn't say anything and followed Tatsumi, catching his shoulder sharply on the door frame on the way out.

"Do you.." Tatsumi paused, unsure how to offer help.

"No," Hisoka snapped, and so Tatsumi settled for keeping close by and ready to catch him as they made their way to the medical room. Hisoka walked drunkenly, his left hand trailing against the wall to keep himself on track. His head was still bowed, watching the floor carefully, his concentrated expression occasionally broken by a look of sudden pain. It took them almost five minutes to get there.

Watari was in his office. He glanced up as Tatsumi came in and nodded, indicating a couple of chairs as he crossed over to the cupboard. "Everything as usual?" he asked. "Any strange sounds, lights, sudden mood changes?"

"The usual," Hisoka said sourly, collapsing into a seat with a sudden lack of grace. Hisoka moved as though drugged most of the time, every movement dragging sullenly as though he resented being there and his mind was somewhere else entirely. But there had been a slow, languid grace there, that was apparent only now it was gone.

"This is new," Watari said, studying the splint on Hisoka's hand. The skin around it was bruised a deep, stormy blue. "How did you do it?"

"Fell," Hisoka said shortly. Tatsumi could see the frustration in Watari's dark golden eyes as he let it slide, checking Hisoka's pupils, heart rate and temperature instead. There was a moment of silence as he regarded Hisoka, something unsaid hanging in the air between them, and then he turned away.

"I suppose we'll have to phone your parents as usual," Watari gave a small, helpless shrug and began flicking through a stack of files stacked precariously on a cabinet. The disorganisation instantly set Tatsumi on edge. "I believe we now have your personal doctor listed under contact numbers if they're busy, a Mr.. ahh.."

Hisoka turned his splintered green gaze back to Watari and blinked slowly, as though trying to see underwater. He suddenly sounded very tired, all the venom gone from his voice. "Muraki."

"Dr Muraki?" Tatsumi glanced up. He'd been staring politely out of the window while Watari checked Hisoka. "At the city hospital?"

"Yeah," Hisoka mumbled.

"My friend has an appointment with him in an hour," Tatsumi said. "I need to drive him over to the hospital anyway- I can take you to get checked first."

"It's really not necessary," Hisoka's voice was too carefully polite, but there was something steely underneath it and he was already standing, if unsteadily. Tatsumi could see how he was trying to draw his features back into that bland, neutral expression he had perfected. A wince of pain distorted it, and for a second Tatsumi thought about his cat laying his hand open when he'd tried to bring her inside for the first time. The wound had been raw and open for a week.

Tatsumi had never been intimidated by anyone, let alone a sixteen year old boy, and he stood smoothly. "Nonsense. It's not out of my way, and I'm sure Mr Watari will agree it's for the best."

"Well, yes," Watari looked slightly confused, but he glanced at Tatsumi for confirmation and nodded. "Otherwise you'll have to wait for your parents to arrive, or call a taxi again, and I'd much rather you weren't alone. I'll keep phoning your parents until I get through and tell them where you are."

Hisoka made a small, irritated noise, but followed Tatsumi slowly out of the room and towards the car, where he took a back seat, his back stiff and arms crossed. Tatsumi glanced into the mirror, checking the traffic behind them before reversing. Hisoka was staring out the window with a rigid expression. There was little to show that anything was amiss, save the darker, pained green of his eyes and an occasional flicker of discomfort breaking through his composed expression. The silence was stiflingly heavy. Tatsumi briefly considered putting the radio on to break it, and then remembered the headaches and drove in silence. He was always a careful driver, but now he eased the car between gears and around corners as gently as though driving with crates full of fine china. It was difficult to dismiss the way Hisoka had looked at that moment in the classroom, as if he might shatter at a touch.

It didn't take long to reach Tsuzuki's place. Tatsumi saw the curtains twitch as he parked up outside, and realised that Tsuzuki would be on his way down. "I'll go get Tsuzuki," he told Hisoka, and went to intercept his friend.

Tsuzuki was coming down the stairs to the first floor when Tatsumi met him. His face changed into forced cheerfulness, too late. Tatsumi had already seen the strange, haunted look that Tsuzuki wore when he was alone. His eyes were the darker, bruise-purple of storm clouds, the buzzing yellow lights above casting the hollows under his cheekbones into stark relief. For that moment, Tsuzuki looked already dead.

"One of my students will be accompanying us," Tatsumi said, after clearing his throat uncomfortably and choosing not to comment on Tsuzuki's expression. "He took ill in class today, and since he sees Muraki for some sort of ongoing condition, I thought he should get a quick check-up while we're there."

"OK," Tsuzuki's expression brightened very slightly. "Does this mean my appointment is cancelled?"

"Sorry," Tatsumi said. "I doubt it'll take very long to get Hisoka checked. Watari says this happens quite often."

Tsuzuki shrugged as if it was nothing to him, and continued down the stairs. The usual bounce was gone from his stride and he held onto the bannister like a man three times his age. "Is he OK?"

"He didn't look it to me," Tatsumi chose his words carefully. "But I'm sure his doctor knows best. I should also tell you that he isn't particularly friendly at the best of times, let alone when he's unwell. Don't take it personally if he's rude to you."

"I'm sure I'll get over it," Tsuzuki said a little dryly, and things almost seemed normal as they emerged from the building into light drizzling rain. Tatsumi had half-expected to see the car empty, but Hisoka was still there, his face a distant blur behind the window. His gaze swept over the two of them, indifferently. Tsuzuki walked around the car and took the other back seat. He always sat in the front, and Tatsumi supposed he was trying to stop Hisoka feeling shut out. It was a nice gesture, even if he already knew how Hisoka would spurn small kindnesses.

"Been seeing Muraki long?" Tatsumi asked Hisoka as he slid into his own seat and started the car up.

"Yes," Hisoka said stiffly, and didn't elaborate. Tatsumi was hoping to find out what the doctor was like, but he wasn't rude enough to pry into someone's medical history. He let it go, and continued towards the hospital.

Tatsumi glanced in the mirror from time to time during the journey, and was pleasantly surprised. Although Hisoka wasn't responding much to Tsuzuki's slightly nervous attempts at conversation, his voice wasn't as scathing as usual. His head was even turned fractionally towards Tsuzuki, although his gaze was fixed firmly away from his face. Tatsumi was interested. He had expected that Tsuzuki, of all people, would particularly irritate Hisoka.

They reached the hospital about ten minutes before Tsuzuki's appointment. Muraki came out early to meet them.

"Mr Tatsumi," Muraki's cultured voice carried effortlessly across the waiting room, as smooth as silk and brushed aluminium. Under the hospital's bluish lights, he looked completely at home, everything about him the silver and white of surgical instruments and sterilised operating theatres. "What a pleasant surprise. You've brought me another of my favourite patients."

"I was wondering if you would take a look at Hisoka before our appointment," Tatsumi said, standing to greet Muraki. "I teach at his school- he seemed unwell earlier."

"What a fortunate coincidence," Muraki's smile was sharp. "Of course. An examination will only take a few minutes. There is, unfortunately, not very much that I can do for Hisoka at the moment."

"Anything you can do, doctor," Tatsumi said politely. He glanced over to Hisoka, and blinked. For a second, he had a feeling that something had _slipped_. Something darker swept over Hisoka's face, like a shadow from a passing cloud, and it was gone. For that instant, there had been something raw and panicked about him, his eyes swallowed up by hopeless, dilated pupils and his sharp features drawing as tight as a closing trap. Then it was gone. Hisoka gave Tatsumi a colourless, neutral look, and turned back to Muraki.

"Hisoka?" Muraki gestured to the door behind him. Hisoka didn't look back or thank Tatsumi for bringing him, and he hadn't expected him to. Muraki held the door for Hisoka, one pale hand resting lightly on his shoulder to guide him as Hisoka stumbled, and then they were gone.

Tsuzuki's expression had changed too. He was staring after Muraki with something a little like hostility, his eyes suddenly burning too intensely under the bright lighting and his lips drawn tight and thin. It was the first time Tatsumi had ever seen Tsuzuki look like this, and then it was gone as quickly as it had came. Tsuzuki met his eyes, smiled weakly and went back to studying the rest of the waiting room. So Tsuzuki didn't like his doctor. Tatsumi was slightly surprised- Tsuzuki was one of the most open and friendly people he had ever met. It wasn't like him at all to take a sudden dislike to someone. Perhaps it was simply because Muraki was a psychiatrist. Tatsumi decided not to say anything. Tsuzuki would realise in his own time that Muraki was only there to help.

Muraki was gone for about ten minutes. Tatsumi reached over to the magazine rack, frowned at the selection and then opened a magazine filled with outdated celebrity news that didn't interest him. Tsuzuki picked through a rack of leaflets on diverse subjects from Alzheimers to gonorrhea, flicking through without reading them and then nervously shredding them while they waited.

"How is Hisoka?" Tatsumi asked, as Muraki reappeared.

"Perfectly well," Muraki said blandly. "Hisoka has a minor neurological problem, and these attacks are not uncommon, although they can seem quite alarming to onlookers. He's currently resting, and his parents will pick him up later."

"I thought you were a psychiatrist."

Muraki laughed, the sound rather brittle. "I was somewhat of a jack of all trades in medical school, Mr Tatsumi, and there is considerable overlap between these disciplines. Who can really say whether the attacks are not psychosomatic?"

"Hasn't he had any brain scans to check?" Tatsumi asked, remembering Watari's words. Again, he found his memory flicking back to that schizophrenia documentary, and the black shadows eating up normal tissue on brain scans. Except in Hisoka's case, it could be worse than a lesion or atrophy. It could be something _growing_, a quietly ticking time bomb nestled somewhere in the lobes and whorls of his brain.

"No need," Muraki said dismissively. "Frankly, any lesion or tumour large enough to cause attacks of this frequency would show impairment in some other area, and Hisoka has tested perfectly normally on every scale we have. It's largely controlled with therapy."

Tsuzuki was still pretending to read one of his leaflets, glancing nervously over it at Muraki.

"And this must be Mr Tsuzuki," Muraki said, extending one hand. Tsuzuki stood, and took it hesitantly, glancing back to Tatsumi for confirmation. Muraki shook hands, and then Tatsumi thought he saw the doctor lean in a little closer, and his expression change as he saw Tsuzuki's purple eyes. Just the usual surprise, he supposed, but he still felt a little uncomfortable as he watched the two of them disappear, Tsuzuki glancing back at him longingly. For a second, Muraki had looked almost hungry.


	7. Chapter 7

Grim Trigger Complex

Author's Notes – Well, this chapter was supposed to begin finally getting slashy, but in the end, it didn't quite flow right and I broke it up into two separate parts instead. I've uploaded them together since not much happens in this part. I wish this fic would stop taking over my mind- it's now looking to be a good four chapters longer than I had originally planned.

Now would be a good time to add a warning- there _will_ be upcoming sex between a person in authority and student. It won't be graphic (boohiss for MA and its 'Possible Strong But Non-Explicit Adult Themes'), but if anyone is understandably squicked by it, you've been warned now. And as a second warning, there's a bit of musing about men who are convicted for similar offences. Please ignore the bad Tatsumi when he doesn't immediately write them off as being to blame. None of this is my own opinion and he's just unconsciously trying to justify himself a little. He knows better really.

Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

After Tsuzuki's appointment was over, Tatsumi brought him back to his own place for the night. He'd read that sometimes suicide rates increased immediately after medical intervention, that ironically, lifting someone's mood that little bit could raise them from their stupor just enough to care whether they lived or died. Tatsumi couldn't understand a world where the first sign of light at the end of the tunnel was that last way out, the hope that everything could be finished. But then, he had never really understood suicide altogether, no matter how many useful facts he had picked up. Tatsumi was not the sort of person wired for self-destruction.

Tsuzuki was silent most of the car ride home. A medication prescription and a handful of glossy leaflets lay unread on his lap. _Living With Depression_, in cheerful oranges and red, a photograph of a female model with eyes shut and fingers pressed into her temples, apparently to represent anguish. _Men and Depression_, masculine blues and whites, a scribbly cartoon cover that Tatsumi supposed was meant to be light-hearted. _About Suicide_, neutral forest greens on white, a silhouette of two hands reaching out to clasp. Muraki had given those to Tatsumi when they came back to the waiting room and he'd promptly handed them over to Tsuzuki, not wanting him to feel as though he had no control over his own treatment. A sense of helplessness towards their own lives was common in the depressed. Tatsumi had read this too, but he didn't need any expert to tell him that. He knew very well just how important control was.

Tsuzuki occasionally shuffled through the leaflets slowly without looking at them. His head rested against the misted-over windows, black tendrils of dampening hair falling over half-closed eyes. He looked exhausted more than anything, and Tatsumi didn't think he was consciously sulking. It took a lot for Tsuzuki to hold a grudge, and he wasn't the sort to make someone feel guilty if they had tried to help and failed anyway.

"Lots to think about." Tsuzuki said with a weak, apologetic smile, as he noticed Tatsumi surreptitiously glancing over at him too many times.

Tatsumi almost felt a need to apologise, despite knowing that there was no logical reason why he should. He was giving up a lot of his own time and money to make this work, and Tsuzuki might not like it now, but it would work out for the best in the end. Therapy was always difficult, and it couldn't heal old wounds in one session. He had been well prepared for the possibility that Tsuzuki might get worse before he got better. Tatsumi was not a particularly empathic person, but it was easy to tell there were all sorts of demons to confront in Tsuzuki's past when the ghosts of them still showed in a sudden darkening of bruise-coloured eyes, in a visible flinch at a distant raised voice.

He waited until later that night before asking how it went. By then, Tsuzuki was almost back to normal. He'd eaten half a banoffee pie (the most revoltingly sweet dessert that Tatsumi could think of), stolen the unread newspaper for the entertainment section, then liberated the cat from the garden and brought her in, squirming and protesting loudly in his arms. Tsuzuki didn't volunteer much information when Tatsumi finally raised the question. He shrugged, eyes on the cat as he answered. Muraki was OK. Yes, it might be helpful. No, he didn't mind trying medication. Tsuzuki might not be very enthusiastic about it, but the next appointment was already booked, and Tatsumi noticed in the following days that Tsuzuki seemed a lot calmer, if occasionally a little more subdued than he liked.

Besides, he had other things to worry about. For one, Tatsumi had became exquisitely aware of Hisoka's presence, and it troubled him. It wasn't just in the classroom any more. His own head would lift slightly as he moved between rooms, without thought, as though he had heard some signal falling outside the normal ranges of human perception. There would be nothing else there but a watercolour jumble of pastel walls and blonde wooden trophy cabinets and pale adolescent faces, and then a few seconds later, Hisoka would come drifting down corridors in his odd, disconnected way. He found himself turning in the corridor as a crowd of students spilled out of a classoom, the background rush and roar of voices suddenly turning oceanic in his ears as he anticipated Hisoka's limpid eyes raising to meet his own for a second, everything still for that one, strange moment.

It concerned him, and it made no sense in his mind. Hisoka was a problem student. He was surrounded by teens with far brighter futures. The school was full of fresh-faced young men who spoke three languages and would go on to become businessmen and travel the world, and pretty girls with shining ponytails who were as at home wielding a bunsen burner as they were at a party. It wasn't about appearances. He taught the sons and daughters of beautiful actresses and famous mistresses, blessed with both the blueprints for photo-perfect looks, and the money for private gyms and weekly salon sessions to keep them. It couldn't even be about personality. In every single one of his classes, the faces might change, but there were always three or four girls who openly giggled and passed notes about their new teacher. There were quiet, eager students who came to his office outside of lessons and hung on his every word.

For some reason, this made Hisoka all the more interesting. Tatsumi didn't mind that Hisoka was never tanned from exotic holidays abroad, or that there was always a new dappled purple bruise or a fresh graze still raw underneath tacky blood. He didn't mind the way he gazed distantly out the window as though drugged, one sharp shoulder prominent under the expensive school uniform as though it was the first thing he'd found on his bedroom floor. He could even ignore the critical tone Hisoka spoke to him in, his words carefully polite, his eyes daring Tatsumi to say something about it.

It frightened him. He was a respected 29 year old maths teacher in an excellent school. Tatsumi knew very well what happened to men like him, and that there were never happy endings. He saw them photographed leaving courts, looking slightly bewildered as though they had been enchanted and weren't sure at all how they had got there. Dangerous predators they might be, but in those photos they always looked as though they had suddenly aged another ten years overnight with shock. They looked like everyone's down-on-their-luck uncle, with receding hair and a shabby suit, their expression bemused as though they were still in love with their teenage bride, wondering at the fickle heart of a fifteen year old girl.

The extra lessons made it worse. The others had quit, one by one. Tsubaki's illness made it difficult for her to keep up, and in the end her father had forcibly withdrawn her despite her protests. Mamoru suddenly transferred school, after a short and ugly divorce between his parents that no one had known about, the father unwilling to pay for private school if it didn't come with the privilege of a perfect wife and family to show for it. Ayame had came to Tatsumi one day, said she had to quit and promptly burst into tears. It had taken a few minutes before she'd calmed down enough to speak, while he waited uncomfortably, reminding her that she didn't need extra classes to keep her grades well above average, and wondering if he should call Watari for a suspected panic attack. She had sounded near-hysterical as she stood to leave, choking out a few incoherent words about work loads and stress as she backed out of his office.

He was surprised that Hisoka had continued to attend, but he hadn't missed a lesson yet. He might come grudgingly, ignore Tatsumi throughout most of it and look as if he'd rather be somewhere else entirely, but he still came and that was the only important thing. Furthermore, he was so close to being a model student that it was almost maddening. He couldn't simply be written off with the other problem students, not when he worked above and beyond university level, and in discussions raised the same points that a younger Tatsumi would have done. There was something there that made the single wrong note all the more frustrating. Tatsumi could instantly find the unbalanced sum in a column of credits and debits, or the surplus variable in an algebraic equation, and write out the mistake with a slash of red pen, but he couldn't solve this.

Hisoka had even chosen a project without prompting, on applications of game theory. Tatsumi still subscribed to a few maths journals he had followed since his university days, and he made a note to tell Hisoka about an advertisement he had seen for an exhibition in the city museum, on the applications of maths in science, society and art. He had already discussed the possibility of a small educational visit with the head of the school.

Somehow, the days slipped away and Tatsumi was entering his sixth week as a teacher. It started with yard duty, not a favourite part of the day. May was still cool and damp enough to make surveying the short recess unpleasant. There wasn't much to monitor anyway. The grounds were too big to watch out for all signs of bullying and only the very youngest still played games. He strolled around the grounds in widening circles, spotting some of his students every so often and raising a hand to acknowledge their greeting. Tsubaki was looking painfully thin and cold even in layers of expensive cashmere, but she separated herself from her group of friends to trot over to him with a question about the upcoming museum visit.

Tatsumi rarely saw Hisoka during the school's recesses. He'd kept an eye out for him the first few times, wondering if he'd get any insight into the boy. A sign of bullying, perhaps, discovering what sort of crowds he ran with, or seeing Hisoka let his guard down amongst his own friends. Hisoka gave nothing away. Tatsumi had noticed that he was often found near the same few students, but none of them seemed to be friends. They congregated silently behind sheds and outbuildings, some there to smoke and some there just to be away from the crowds. They cupped cigarettes in a palm, or leaned against an outbuilding staring into the sky while the time slipped away and a distant bell rang for the next lesson. Occasionally, there might be some remark, a short laugh, and then back into the moody silence, standing alone in whatever little islands of pain separated them from the rest. Perhaps it was the closest to acquaintances that they could ever have.

Hisoka was behind one of the storage buildings today, sat on a bench with one sharp knee propped up and a book unread in front of him. His head was tilted back to rest against the wall, blonde hair flaming weakly against rust and iron. His eyes opened slowly as Tatsumi passed by, skimming across him without enthusiasm.

There were two older students nearby, grey plumes of smoke still rising on the cool green air and the cigarettes lost somewhere in the wet grass as soon as he arrived. He'd seen the three of them together a few times. The other boy glanced up at him slowly with smoulderingly dark eyes the colour of dying ashes, and then turned his attention back to the dull skies. The girl's skirt was six inches shorter than regulation, too-high heels sunk ruthlessly into the wet ground. She gave him a disinterested look, too preoccupied by whatever could trouble seventeen year old rich girls born with every possible privilege. He passed by, slightly irritated that two of them had obviously been smoking, but with nothing to prove it.

As he was walking back towards the main school buildings, he saw the crowd beginning to form, and began to run. There were few fights in the school, but when they happened, it was rarely playground scrapping. They were usually sudden, bloody fights arising over some secret feud or other, often ending with an ambulance at the school gates.

As he got closer, he slowed down cautiously. It was much too quiet for a school fight. There was no cheering or raised voices, and the crowd didn't jump up and down for a better view, or scream and rush backwards as they got too close. The students were standing still around the side of one of the main school buildings in a half circle, in an almost respectful silence so absolute that they turned at the sound of his footsteps. The crowd moved aside silently to let Tatsumi through, their expressions unreadable.

The clouds had parted for the first time in days, and everything was much too clear and much too quiet. The distant sounds of a lawnmower droned alone in the silence, the blood spattering a plaid skirt too bright against school greys and creams. He glanced up to the edge of the building where she must have stood, staring down at shining Mary-Janes and the distant, black shapes that had been her classmates in another lifetime. He hoped that someone had seen her thin silhouette etched black against the skies as she stood alone on the edge of the building, before she had stepped out into the bitterly cold morning air.

The students were still too calm, and perhaps they had seen worse than this in a hundred horror films. Perhaps they were used to seeing computer-generated limbs bent in angles that looked almost obscene, or the raw red-and-white of a joint that had burst open like organic fireworks. Half of her once-pretty face was undamaged and turned aside in a pool of blood that slowly crept over the dull yard concrete, her visible eye half closed as though in concentration, her lips slightly parted. It was an expression he was familiar with, the dreamy look she wore when a question had suddenly occurred to her. A few minutes before, this ruin had been one of his students. It had been Ayame, who had never been in trouble in her life, and came to him in tears when she couldn't keep all her classes, and could never be thin enough.

He began uselessly ushering students away as other teachers filtered out to assist him, murmuring the same things over and over in the church-like hush. _"Come on now.. there's nothing can be done.. back into the school."_. Saya was there, gently guiding pupils alongside him, her pretty face gone as pale as the dead girl would once _pallor mortis_ set in. One or two of the girls were silently weeping on each others' shoulders, but the atmosphere overall was frighteningly composed. The students let themselves be moved back, slowly trickling towards the school hall in response to some announcement sputtering over the intercom. An ambulance wailed somewhere in the distance, and it would have been too late if it had been summoned before she hit the ground.

Tatsumi began to walk away, guiding the last few back towards the school. Watari had came out and was uselessly checking her pulse, nothing to do but confirm that signs of life had been looked for before the ambulance arrived to take her away. His sunny blonde hair was scraped ruthlessly back and his expression suddenly austere as he gently felt for the carotid artery with gloved hands.

Hisoka was one of the last to leave. Tatsumi hadn't noticed him there, standing alone some distance from the crowds. His arms were crossed, his head tilted and expression pensive rather than troubled. He didn't drop his gaze as the students parted and walked away, revealing what had once been a classmate of his, now looking strangely flat and doll-like in a pool of spreading blood. As Tatsumi watched, Hisoka flinched slightly, touching the area just above his eye almost reflexively.

"Hisoka?"

He walked over. Hisoka looked up, slowly moving his fingers away from that spot beside his temple, just above the frontal lobes. There was a faint mark there as though from a rough kiss, a red smudge slowly fading back to near-translucent white in the cold air. There was nothing disorientated about his eyes this time, glittering cool and clear in the brittle morning light.

"Does it hurt?" Tatsumi asked. He glanced over to check Watari was still nearby.

Hisoka gave him a strange, unreadable smile. "No. It's just stopped."

"Come on," Tatsumi said, slightly uneasy. Hisoka didn't move, but when Tatsumi touched his shoulder, he shrugged and turned away. Tatsumi continued walking alongside him, out towards the grounds.

"Hisoka needs some air," he called back to Saya, who was directing the last few students into the school. She nodded, her expression distracted, and he felt sorry for her. She had been a teacher some months longer than he had, but she was still only a girl a year out of university and already she had lost a student on the job. Unlike himself, he suspected that she would turn over her memories for months, looking for some point when she might have made a difference with a single gentle enquiry, a phone call to the parents. Watari looked up from where he was still kneeling by Ayame, to see if he was needed. Tatsumi made a small, dismissive gesture, and he went back to his work.

"I'm fine," Hisoka said, less irritably than usual. He didn't stop walking though. Tatsumi glanced at his student again, and believed him. Tatsumi was one of those personality types prone towards migraines and he was familiar with them all- the dull, trapped thud that threatened to burst open skulls like a rotten puffball mushroom, the lopsided, raw jags of pain that felt like a temple was studded with nails and broken glass. This was nothing like the last attack he'd seen. If anything, Hisoka looked as though a headache had just lifted.

"You don't want to go see Watari?"

Hisoka gave him a slightly scornful look, and carried on walking, unclipped wet grass whickering softly underfoot. A fine drizzle had started, so light the rain seemed suspended in the clear air. Tiny beads of water sparkled like the points of light from distant stars, trapped in Hisoka's dusky blonde hair and dark eyelashes.

"Have you done any more work on your project?" Tatsumi asked, not out of any particular need to break a silence that wasn't awkward at all. He supposed it might be an insensitive question to ask in the wake of a suicide, but Hisoka genuinely didn't seem disturbed by it at all.

"Some reading."

"Are you going to the museum visit? You've probably covered most of it in your reading, but I believe Dr Yamazaki will be around to answer questions- he's one of the leading researchers at the main city university, and he's been consulted throughout the creation of the entire exhibit. It's not supposed to be too watered down for the general public either."

Hisoka pulled a crumpled yellow permission slip out of his pocket and handed it over without answering.

"Tsuzuki will probably supervise it if Watari can't. You seemed to get on with him when you met."

"He's an idiot," Hisoka said, without any real enthusiasm behind it.

"Don't," Tatsumi said, a little sharply. Hisoka shrugged, and began turning back towards the school, following a running track shaved into the grass. They had walked out past the yard, further than Tatsumi had thought. Few teachers came this way outside gym lessons, and it showed. There was someone's initials cut into a tree so recently it still dripped glassy, amber beads, a condom wrapper caught in a bush, a joint crushed to a damp white comma in the long grass.

They arrived at the school some minutes later, and stopped by the door to the main halls. The ambulance had arrived behind them, driving straight into the yard. The lights were still flashing neon as they heard the distant beepings and clatterings as the paramedics carried on going through with the usual procedure, even when Ayame lay there with her blood cooling against the concrete.

"There's an emergency assembly in the hall," Tatsumi said. "I already told Saya you needed some air, so you're excused if you like."

Hisoka nodded. He looked up at Tatsumi, paused for a second as though about to say something, and then turned and walked back into the school in silence.

The rest of the day's lessons continued, perhaps a little quieter than usual. The school office had managed to find a couple of counsellors to discuss the deaths in the hall for students who thought they needed it, or simply wanted an excuse to miss a lesson or two. Those remaining were rather more subdued than usual. By the time Tatsumi had finished clearing the board after his final lesson, he wasn't surprised to see that the other staff had left as quickly as possible, and only Watari was still in the teacher's lounge. Tatsumi noticed that for once Watari wasn't wearing his usual white coat. He had a feeling that the explanation involved bloodstains.

"I heard she was one of your students," Watari said, without needing to look up as Tatsumi entered. "Sorry."

Tatsumi sat down heavily, dropping his files onto a nearby chair without his usual care. "Yes. She used to take extra lessons with me until she quit," he paused, wondering whether it was anything significant. "She seemed to be under a lot of stress."

Watari shrugged. "There wasn't anything you can do. Her grades were all above average, but anorectics are like that. They can never be good enough."

They were silent for a moment. Watari was filling out something that Tatsumi suspected was related to the earlier death. He began reading his newspaper, not in any real rush to leave. He rarely was. There wasn't anything in his small, bachelor home that he particularly looked forward to. It had always been work that he lived for.

"Sorted out that museum trip yet?" Watari asked, finishing off the form with his elaborate, looping signature. A few phrases here and there were visible even from where Tatsumi sat, Watari's untidy handwriting incongruous with the medical terminology. "_In my professional opinion.." blunt force trauma" "immediately suffered extensive craniocerebral injuries". _His expression was still grave, but not particularly saddened. Watari was both a doctor and a scientist, and well-acquainted with death. He could detach himself from the usual, emotional human responses upon seeing a corpse, and see only the reality of an organic machine that had broken down.

"Mostly," Tatsumi said, clipping Hisoka's permission slip to the others he had acquired so far. There were just two- Tsubaki, which didn't surprise him much, and Hijiri, a rather quiet student who was better known for his music than his maths.

"Put me down to supervise," Watari said, as Tatsumi stood to leave.

"Thank you," he said gratefully and left the staff room. As he passed the yard, there was nothing there but the soft slosh of water as the groundskeeper continued playing a hose over the concrete, until the blood was so diluted there was nothing to see.


	8. Chapter 8

Grim Trigger Complex

Author's Notes- Rating might be going up next chapter depending on how carried away I get, so it may no longer be appearing on the default rating filter.  
Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

Another week passed.

Tatsumi wasn't particularly looking forward to supervising a school outing, even if there were only three students involved. He was not the sort of teacher who was naturally attracted to this sort of work. He had no interest in standing in a bitterly cold yard supervising after-school sports, or enduring hours on a stiflingly hot bus, or endlessly counting heads and checking that no one was defacing a famous historical site. At least the only three students coming were all well-behaved, and Watari would be there. He seemed to have the knack of connecting with teenagers that Tatsumi lacked. Tsuzuki would be there as well, which was unexpected. He had no interest in maths at all, but there would be plenty of time for him to amuse himself in the rest of the museum. Tatsumi was secretly pleased, hoping that Tsuzuki and Hisoka would end up talking again. Not only was it surprising to see his decidedly antisocial student connecting with someone, but he thought it might be good for Tsuzuki too. Hisoka could be rude and unfriendly and didn't sugarcoat anything, but he also didn't seem the type to care if someone was seeing a psychiatrist or had unnerving purple eyes.

When the day came, everything initially went as he had planned. The students were all waiting outside the building on time, and only Watari was a few minutes late. The exhibition wasn't bad either, covering applications of maths in everything from architecture and art through to space explorations and evolutionary sociobiology, although Tatsumi still noticed a few omissions he was displeased with.

Hijiri and Tsubaki rapidly lost interest in the maths exhibition.

"We're not in school now," Tatsumi said without looking away from an exhibit, as he heard them beginning to shuffle somewhere behind him. "You don't have to humour me. Just make sure you're ready to leave on time."

"I'll keep an eye on them," Watari said, detaching himself from the group. It wasn't long before Tsuzuki apologetically excused himself, losing interest a full ten minutes after Tatsumi had predicted.

Hisoka came over to the exhibit, propping his arms on the barrier as he read the notes around photos depicting evolutionary altruism in various species.

Tatsumi experienced another of those uncomfortable moments of hyperawareness. He couldn't see Hisoka beyond a vague, white-and-gold blur in the corner of his vision, but he still became acutely aware of certain things. A uniform sleeve pushed back carelessly to show bright blood-drops strung gaudily like Christmas decorations across a fresh graze, the gold shimmer of down just before the temple's hairline, the luminous marshlight glow at the centre of an iris, striated with forest green. In that second, he even thought he could feel heated air rising from one arm, thin and bare and bruised next to his own adult hand in cufflinks and suit. There was a flicker under Hisoka's eyelids, the sharp curve of his profile turning minutely against a halo of morning light as though waiting for a confession, a promise, anything.

"They used one of my studies," Tatsumi said instead, noticing a citation on a board in front of a game theory stand. He was mildly surprised. It had been a good paper, but some years had passed since then and plenty had challenged his ideas in the months that had followed.

"I read that paper," Hisoka glanced over at the citation. "And the other one, on social game theory."

"There were three altogether," Tatsumi said. "The last was taken over by another of my colleagues after I left. I don't believe I was credited in the final, published version."

"I don't understand why you'd go into teaching if you could write papers," Hisoka leaned forward to press a button. A short video began to play, demonstrating replicator equations via the medium of chimpanzees for the benefit of the general public.

"I went into accounting first," Tatsumi said. "There were other things going on, and bills to pay."

"Do you miss it?"

"A little, sometimes. Are you interested in going into research?"

Hisoka shrugged. "There's no point, is there?"

"Why not?"

"I just don't think I'll be able to do it." Hisoka turned away to a new exhibition. A glossy cut-out Russell Crowe as John Nash presided over an interactive display. He pressed the button and watched a poorly dubbed clip from _A Beautiful Mind_ demonstrate one of the more useful applications of game theory- how best to ensure one man and his friends could all go home with a girl that night.

"You shouldn't have any problem getting a research grant at university," Tatsumi kept his voice light as he followed. "Unless, of course, you have another degree in mind."

"I'm not going," Hisoka said. A giant nautilus shell now, the soft pearly whorls replicated in plastic and the female voiceover explaining how this natural formation embodied a mathematical curve known as the logarithm spiral, the golden ratio. He gave Tatsumi a neutral look as he moved on before the video had even started. "You're probably wasting your time."

A flock of origami birds this time, fluttering on wires above a board illustrating the Kawasaki Theorem. Tatsumi noticed that someone had written their phone number on a bird that had been flown too low. "I don't think I am," he said, catching one of the nearest and straightening a crumpled wing. It had been made by a volunteer perhaps, the geometry of the triangles folded imperfectly in the thick paper.

Hisoka shrugged, now inspecting an architectural display. The centre of the piece was a fibreglass model of the impossibly perfect Great Pyramid, a voiceover describing the remarkable grasp of mathematics that the Egyptians had used to create it so precisely without computer or calculator. "It seems like a waste," Tatsumi said, catching up again, deliberately casual. He noticed the faint signs of irritation crossing Hisoka's face, and realised he was pushing it again. Only a second later, he realised that just weeks before, he wouldn't have got even this much of an answer.

Hisoka turned back to him, his eyes suddenly bright in the flickering yellow light from a nearby TV screen. "We've seen everything in the exhibit," he said flatly.

They went back into the main museum to find the others, and saw Tsuzuki briefly in the natural history department. He and Watari seemed to be having some animated conversation, down in the main gallery of the dinosaur hall. Hisoka and Tatsumi had emerged on the balcony, where fibreglass pterosauri wheeled in flight, suspended on nearly invisible wires. An enormous apatosaurus skeleton spanned the main gallery, dwarfing Watari and Tsuzuki, who were examining some model dinosaur eggs spilling a tiny plastic hatchling out amongst fragments of shells and dropped sweet wrappers.

They passed briefly through the gallery. Up close, it was less impressive. Someone had stubbed out a guilty cigarette on the hatchling's head, one of the eyes gone to black melted plastic. There was a Coke can wedged between the jaws of the triceratops skeleton, and when Hisoka pressed the button, the recorded voice stuck on a loop, endlessly assuring them that the triceratops was a herbivore despite its ferocious appearance. An animatronic tyrannasaurus rex let out a wheezy roar, jerkily lunging back and forward from a simulated jungle on visible runners. Hisoka seemed somewhat interested by a half-buried skeleton under glass, the bones still sank into the ground that had turned to rock around it.

They moved on aimlessly between the floors, seeing no one else in the next hour or so. In the animal halls, they watched butterflies siphon nectar from flowers, the husks of a hundred dead specimens pinned under glass bubbles on the opposite wall next to biomechanical scorpions and striped tarantulas that looked kitten-soft. A dodo gazed stupidly at them in the birds department while recorded parrots chittered noisily at their intrusion. In the mammals hall, they heard the recorded cry of a howler monkey and saw the sad, ragged remains of a stuffed lion, fur worn away from too many touching hands. Neither of them was fooled by a sign inviting them to pull aside a curtain and see the deadliest animal alive ("A mirror?" Hisoka said, unimpressed, and they carried on without bothering to check). In the aquariums, Hisoka wandered ghostly under the shifting bluish light, examining gaudy striped lionfish and jewelled coral pulsing softly under glass.

The astronomy section was hushed, the walls and ceiling velvety black. Tiny lights winked in and out of existence, replicating constellations and the glittering pastel smudge of the Milky Way. They watched the life and death of a computer-generated star in fireworks-brilliant yellows and blues. Engines designed to propel rockets into space were cut away to show intricate coiled insides that had probably kept Watari entertained for a good hour, and meant nothing to either of them. There was a dreary exhibition of the space race with a half-hour film that Hisoka walked out of after three minutes.

With ten minutes left until parents were due to arrive, they found Tsubaki and Hijiri waiting dutifully in the maths exhibition as though they had been there all along, watching the clips from _A Beautiful Mind_. Tsuzuki and Watari were nearby, apparently discussing the film and Nash's schizophrenia. Tatsumi caught up with them and was pleased to hear Watari dismissing some question by telling Tsuzuki that Nash had managed his illness perfectly well, and was still working in mathematics today.

"I'll wait for the parents," Tatsumi told Watari as they left the museum into humid air that threatened to bring heavy rain. Watari nodded gratefully, and was gone. Tsuzuki retreated back inside to the safety of the gift shop once he'd found out where Tatsumi would waiting in the car park. Tatsumi wondered what sort of odd gift Tsuzuki would present him with this time. A luminous aptosaurus pillow perhaps, or a poster decorated with illustrations of the Golden Ratio in art and architecture.

Tsubaki's parents were already there, an enormous car idling in the car park and her father a vague black shape behind the darkened glass. She waved at them cheerfully, and was gone. Hijiri had already called a taxi on his cell phone just before they left the museum lobby. Tatsumi waited, uncomfortably. He had forgotten the boy was an orphan, and wondered if he should have offered to take him back to wherever he lived.

The three of them waited for a few minutes before Hijiri's taxi arrived, Hijiri keeping up cheerful conversation about the exhibits he had enjoyed most. Tatsumi nodded and answered his questions while checking his watch every so often, and Hisoka looked away with mild disgust when Hijiri tried to engage him in some discussion or other.

"I should go catch my train," Hisoka said as Hijiri disappeared into a taxi.

"Your parents were supposed to pick you up here at 5pm," Tatsumi said.

Hisoka gave him an odd look. "I doubt they read the letter."

Tatsumi glanced at his watch. "It's only ten past. Let's give them a few minutes. The traffic is terrible at this time."

"If you like," Hisoka leaned against the wall, staring up at nothing in particular. It was darker than it should be at this time, the skies clogged with swollen purplish clouds the colour of infection, draining the last remaining light from the world. The scene would have been depressing enough without the fading grey light, in sharp contrast to the bright, if shabby museum interior. Out behind the main building, there was nothing to see but a desolate expanse of flat concrete, an enormous car park designed years before this place had fallen from popularity. One or two other cars were dotted out there in that vast swathe of concrete, sweeping out until it met wire-link fences and the dim grey bulk of warehouses beyond that. The air was too still to stir the litter that had gathered in drifts nearby, left there so long that the bright Coke cans had faded to greys and silver.

No one came, not even a trickle of museum staff leaving for the day. Even the two other vehicles had a broken-down look as though they had been there for some years, and only Tatsumi's own car gave any indication that the place wasn't completely deserted. Traffic droned somewhere far-away beyond the warehouses, too quiet to break the hot, hushed near-silence. Summer was coming, however reluctantly, and the heated air shimmered with rising pollution and drizzle that tasted like rust and smoke, the taste of ruin and urban decay and things falling apart. Tatsumi shifted, the suffocating atmosphere sapping the life from everything, slowly bringing on a drugged stupor. It was the sort of oppressively heavy air that bore down almost tangibly, waiting to be broken.

Later, Tatsumi couldn't remember precisely how it happened, and that made it worse. It was bad enough to know that something had occurred without even being to go back and analyse it and work out precisely where things had gone wrong. He would never know if he had initiated things, or if Hisoka had. He was almost always the one to take charge, but then, they were so very alike.

All he remembered was that the lethargic air had been shattered by a sudden downpour. There was nothing in between the drizzle, and the sudden flood of cool water breaking over his head as the skies split open, a brilliant magnesium-white flash turning the car park to a bleached photo negative of itself. Hisoka had glanced up, startled, drops of water shattering like diamonds between his eyelashes as he blinked the rain away. Tatsumi turned to tell him to move inside. Everything else in his visual field was grey- grey skies, grey concrete, grey cars, all smearing meaninglessly out of existence under the sheets of rain. Hisoka shook hair out of his eyes, faded blonde just beginning to darken like tarnished gold, and underneath it his eyes were like deep, still waters overlaying treacherous currents. There might have been a hand on his tie tugging him down, and perhaps that was what left Tatsumi breathless, choking on both rain and stormy air as he stood alone in the car park seconds later. Thunder rolled low and ominous above a sky that seemed to be falling apart above them, the way that judgement day might sound.

There was cool city rain and a salty taste like diluted tears, chapped lips like tissue paper overlying dangerous, shimmering heat, and Tatsumi pulled back sharply before the sensation had properly registered, his nerves jangling with warnings. A single spot burned in the centre of his lower lip, the fleeting memory blazing over and over in the electric cage of his nervous system, branded and ashamed.

"That shouldn't have happened." His voice sounded too small, lost in the downpour.

"Why not, Mr Tatsumi?" Hisoka's smile was dreamy and rather frightening. His eyes had gone to the humid green of wet tropical rainforests. "It's what you want, isn't it?"

Tatsumi glanced away, his heart skittering wildly as the sudden surge of adrenaline hit him hard. The rush of rain and the blood in his temples blended together into one urgent flux, the air too thin to sustain him. It was an entirely alien feeling, being completely disarmed and unnerved and whether by his own actions, or this strange sixteen year old besides him, he didn't know. His eyes swept around the car park, jumping nervously from one place to the next. There was no sign of any life anywhere, the cars vague lifeless black shapes through the rain.

"They aren't coming," Hisoka told him, frowning. "You can stop worrying."

"It shouldn't have happened," he said again, sharper this time. "I'm sorry. Go home, Hisoka."

Hisoka didn't look hurt. He gave Tatsumi a strange, appraising look, and turned away. Within seconds, he was nothing more than a dim shape in the rain, and then he was gone.

It was some moments before Tatsumi could move. He let the rain wash over him, and it did nothing to cool the sick fever that swept through him in slow, shuddering waves, reality hitting home over and over again. When some of the greyish clouds had cleared from his vision, he made his way to the car, scratching a long silver line up the side when he tried to unlock it with shaking hands. Inside the fragile safety of moulded glass and metal, there was warm yellow light spilling out with the distant banterings of radio hosts and chart music. Everything there was soothing and normal, a safe bubble away from whatever had happened in that world where the rain had locked down around them. Once his breathing was under control, he glanced slowly around the car park. It was completely abandoned and the fading light too weak to see more than a silhouetted outline, but suddenly the grounds were full of places that could harbour any number of witnesses to that one moment of madness.

It was a long time before he composed himself enough to send Tsuzuki a text message and ask him to come out to the car.


	9. Chapter 9

Grim Trigger Complex

Author's Notes – Well, this was never meant to be discontinued. These two chapters, and quite a bit more were all written before _Christmas- _yes, seven months ago. There's no excuse, really- my flash drive was accidentally left 200 miles away, but I did get it back in April. It's just taken a while to get back into this, since it's currently the equivalent of a 100 page book and I really wasn't looking forward to re-reading it all _again_ to see where I was up to, and make sure there weren't any plot holes big enough to lose an X-box in.

Anyway, I know these two chapters need a lot of work, but since it's been so long I thought I'd get them up anyway, and post a tidied-up version to my journal later.

Disclaimer - I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

Tatsumi wasn't a terrible actor, but the interior mirror showed that he had gone unusually pale, and Tsuzuki could be oddly perceptive when it came to his friends. He was yet to get so mired in his own depression that he couldn't pick up on the slightest thing wrong- a missing account, a troublesome client, a sudden deadline to meet. Fortunately, Tsuzuki chattered enthusiastically all the way home and covered the silence between them, too animated to notice if anything was wrong. It had done him good to get out of his flat, with nothing there but his own circulating depression that never cleared. Or maybe it was spending time with someone other than Tatsumi, with people that Tsuzuki knew for sure weren't only there out of a sense of duty. Small things made all the difference sometimes, and Tatsumi was never sure what it was that Tsuzuki needed.

Tatsumi's anxiety slowly eased under the light conversation and the simple routine of guiding the car through evening traffic. By the time they reached Tsuzuki's house, he was almost certain that Hisoka had started things, and it had certainly been Tatsumi who had ended them before they had even began. He absently rubbed away the prickling, guilty heat in the centre of his lower lip as he watched Tsuzuki bounding enthusiastically towards his apartment, holding a newspaper over his head to shelter from the rain.

Back at his own house, and the storm was moving overhead, thick clouds rolling with sullen thunder and purple-white magnesium light. He opened the car door and emerged into the lashing rain, the water already half an inch deep as the drains overflowed and spilled back out the debris from the last few weeks, silvered cans and pulpy leaves and the swollen corpse of something small and shapeless in death. The front garden was turning soupy, and Tatsumi supposed the flowers Tsuzuki had planted there would be drowned and rotting by now.

He slammed the car door behind him with a dull clunk, bringing Tsuzuki's gift with him. He had an interesting selection of little presents Tsuzuki had picked up for him here or there, all of them chosen with great care, and all completely tasteless. This time it was a coffee mug from the museum's gift shop, proudly bearing the legend "Without Geometry, Life Would Be Pointless". At least he wouldn't have to wear this one, or leave it out on display somewhere in his home. Perhaps he'd even use it. Tatsumi often seemed to be the only teacher in the staff lounge who didn't bring a cup declaring him to be the World's Best Dad or a No1 Lover.

With his head bowed into the streaming rain, he was almost at the door when he realised that Hisoka was waiting there.

At first there was nothing, then a glimmer of white, his face a pale slash through the gathering shadows as though he had disappeared into the evening like salt stirred into water. And then Hisoka looked up guilelessly from where he sat on the doorstep, head resting against the wall. His eyes glowed catlike in the darkness, marsh light trapped between lashes matted wetly together. For a moment, Tatsumi remembered Tsuzuki waiting there, head bowed and eyes gone to the dull, nostalgic colour of old stained glass. But they weren't really the same at all. The dim rain-filtered light stole the last of Hisoka's colour, plastered his autumnal hair to his head and left him as something older, sleeker, more dangerous.

Hisoka stood up, unfolding fluidly as though he hadn't been waiting in the cooling rain.

"I thought we needed to talk," he said, soft monotone seeping through the endless swish of rain and the dour rumbling above.

"You shouldn't have came here," The first words that came to a mind suddenly numb as he froze besides the door, a sick jolt of adrenaline flooding his mouth with a taste between bitter lemon and old metal, and how did Hisoka even _know _his address? A deep breath while he waited for words to come, humid choked-up thunderstorm air that cleared nothing, rolled into his lungs and settled there thickly like polluted London fog. He looked away, eyes jumping from neighbouring house to street, quick nervous little flickers that saw nothing at all, looking for a yellow square of electric light, a shadow shifting on a window, a black shape leaning into the sleeting rain as it struggled up the long deserted street towards them. Hisoka gave him that irritated look again.

"Don't worry. No one saw me come."

"You shouldn't be out in this rain either," Tatsumi said, realising that Hisoka had been out in the storm ever since it had started. "I'll drive you home," He jingled his keys pointedly.

"I don't want to go home yet," Hisoka was turned half away now, studying the silty, swirling water at his feet as though looking for a cue, maybe out of his depth now. "There's no law against me being here, is there?"

"No," Tatsumi agreed, exhaling slowly. "But it would look inappropriate."

Hisoka made a soft, amused sound. "Well, we wouldn't want that."

Tatsumi was silent. He knew he could order Hisoka to leave, and however reluctantly, he would go. And that would probably be the end of things, maybe everything, and that would be for everyone's best. Better to cut things down here, and they had already gone much too far. Whatever connection they had in a empty classroom over Baye's theorem, in a schoolyard while a dead girl's blood washed away, in a rainy car park, was all inconsequential. And yet, for the first time in months, Hisoka had came to _him_, and that made all the difference. He didn't think he could walk away from Hisoka any more than he could walk away from Tsuzuki, even if he knew it would tear them all apart.

"It's getting cold, Mr Tatsumi," Hisoka told him, shifting uncomfortably underneath the thin rusty water spattering from the overflowing gutters.

"Fine," Tatsumi said, defeated, anything to get them inside and away from the streets and blank watching windows and that wounded sky split open with splintry white gashes. He unlocked the door with suddenly unsteady hands, another sick white flare of lightning bleaching the garden with the clean, decolorizing light of nuclear aftermath. Hisoka followed him inside like a bedraggled stray cat, rainwater streaming to puddle in the neat, plainly decorated hallway. "Phone your parents."

Hisoka gave him a baleful look. "And tell them what, exactly?"

"You'll think of something," Tatsumi said.

Hisoka sighed, and pulled out a mobile phone. He tapped the number in, and waited. Tatsumi didn't have to listen to know there would be the distant sounds of a phone ringing in an empty corridor, perhaps a dark-haired woman moving past ghost-like to check it was not an important call, before it rolled over to an answering machine.

"It's Hisoka-"

And what type of teenage boy had to _identify_ themselves to their parents?

"I'm at a friend's house. I don't know when I'll be back. I'll leave my phone on if you need me."

There was a thin beep as he finished the message abruptly and hung up, shoving the expensive phone into a pocket carelessly. He looked over to Tatsumi expectantly, maybe lost now, perhaps not so certain of whatever he'd came to say.

"Go.. sort yourself out," Tatsumi said vaguely, indicating the stairs. Hisoka disappeared, and he went into the kitchen, another few minutes of time bought to think ahead. It was too tight to breathe in here, and he opened a window to let in billowing charged air, never mind the beads of warm rainwater already collecting on the tiles. What would Watari or Saya do if one of their students showed up at home? Probably let them in, if they weren't rumoured to be involved in violence or gang activity, and see what they could do for them, and maybe that would be better than sending Hisoka away, no matter what had happened earlier.

No answers came to Tatsumi while he busied himself in the simple routine of making tea, listening to the background noises of running taps and floorboards creaking upstairs. Each small sound set him on edge more, nerves wound taut as wires and thrumming with danger. He had never realised how accustomed he had become to the silence when Tsuzuki wasn't around.

Hisoka came clattering noisily downstairs, perhaps annoyed with Tatsumi. With his hair roughly dried and fluffed, he looked younger and more vulnerable than he had done earlier.

"Sit down," Tatsumi said, turning back to the kettle. Steam billowed up, fogging the windows and filling the kitchen with jungle heat. There was a scrape as Hisoka pulled out a chair and collapsed into it carelessly, but Tatsumi could still feel an intense gaze burning into his back. He filled two cups and remained standing, the way he would when trying to face down one of his students. He knew how he should handle this- sympathetic, but distant. Enquiring, but not pressurising. Friendly, but not too personal. And he would not let himself be blackmailed by a sixteen year old boy, if it came down to that.

"So. What is it?"

Hisoka shrugged moodily, dropping his gaze to stare sideways out the window. His fingers knotted together briefly on the table before him, laid out flat again as soon as he noticed. "I don't know. I don't understand you."

"How do you mean?"

"Always.." Hisoka paused, small annoyed gesture as words didn't come. "_talking_ to me. And making me take part in things. I suppose the reason why is obvious now."

"You're one of my students," Tatsumi told him, not rising to the bait. "Of course I care about you."

"And you mean it all too," Hisoka looked at Tatsumi oddly. He looked away and shrugged again. "I don't get it."

"It shouldn't have happened," Tatsumi said abruptly, placing a cup in front of Hisoka and turning back to the counter. A blearily reflected Hisoka watched him in the window while he stared out into the shapeless, shifting evening, the moon already a milky blur in the sky. The air was cooler here by the window, crackling with charged ozone, and it cooled some of the sick, prickling fever that had came over him. It was a moment before he turned back to the kitchen.

Hisoka was unreadable, expression closed up tight, staring into his cup as though there were any answers in the black oily depths. "I don't mind."

"I do," Tatsumi said. "Look, if there's anything you need to talk about. School.. home?" Tatsumi took a seat, crossed his arms expectantly, and then trailed off. He wasn't particularly good with this sort of thing.

Hisoka sighed emphatically, and didn't answer.

"You can come and see me any time in school hours," Tatsumi tried again and then paused, frustrated, too hot and choked-up in here to think straight. A note of annoyance was creeping into his voice, either at Hisoka or himself, and all subtlety gone now. "You really shouldn't have came here. What if Tsuzuki had came back with me?"

"If we're just _talking_," Hisoka said. "then it doesn't matter, does it? Besides, he wouldn't mind. Tsuzuki doesn't think you can do anything wrong."

"How do you mean?" Tatsumi asked sharply, any mention of Tsuzuki's name always enough to catch his attention, all those sharp syllables sinking through the fog that had came over him since that afternoon.

"It's just obvious," Hisoka mumbled into his cup, dismissing his own words. A moment passed, and then he looked up again, his expression suddenly open and genuine. "You should go out with him more. He enjoyed himself today."

There was that feeling _again_, as though Tatsumi had missed something. There was only those few minutes when he had been buying tickets that Tsuzuki and Hisoka could have talked alone. And Hisoka wasn't the sort to ask about a stranger's feelings, and Tsuzuki didn't wear his heart on his sleeve. He paused, considered, and then dismissed it for now. There was an almost delirious dizziness coming over him, perhaps the aftershock of kissing a student. A wild tempo beat in his temples, like the feverish sound of the _tarantella,_ the frantic dance to drain spider venom.

"Just go," he said, standing, suddenly too close, another minute and he'd do something he might regret and that wasn't him at all. Tatsumi did not take chances, did not gamble, did not play wild cards or stir a chaining butterfly effect that may spiral hopelessly beyond his control, he'd taken all that long ago and sewn it up safely inside in numbers and order and routines. "Please-"

And it was too late.

Tatsumi's relationship history to date was unremarkable. He had never felt any particular need to spend the rest of his life with one person, but there had been a handful of casual partners that he had somehow drifted into a relationship with. Most of them female, all of them around his own age group, well-adjusted, somewhat above average looks and his intellectual equals. They were all fairly indistinguishable. A secretary three years his elder with black, upswept hair, a clean-cut student who had shared a class or two with him, an intimidatingly beautiful blonde with an intellect to match. They had engaged in relationships that were, unsaid, casual and amicable enough. For two or three months they would go on moderately expensive dates every so often, discuss current affairs or literature over coffee, and have well-rehearsed, unexciting sex.

Hisoka was different. There were suddenly sharp knees digging into his thighs, his tie yanked too tight and Hisoka's light weight pinning him to the chair, scorching him everywhere he touched. Hisoka felt too hot, almost feverish, and Tatsumi was dizzy himself. His head struck the wall behind him as the chair tipped backwards, and he saw stars, a thousand raw white lights going supernova in the secret darkness behind his eyelids.

Tatsumi made a small, damned sound, and was lost.


	10. Chapter 10

Grim Trigger Complex

Author's Notes- Unfortunate need for a fade-to-black scene, so I guess that's up to interpretation, though I personally don't think much happened. Although this is an AU and Hisoka hasn't been raped, I'd assume that given his background, he's probably still going to be a little uncomfortable getting too close to others. I hope even this doesn't come across as too abrupt- it is supposed to be taking place some months after they've met.

Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

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Tatsumi had very rarely ever drank with the intention of getting drunk, and the numbers of hangover he'd had in his life wouldn't reach double digits. Only two since he'd left education and found work, one after the funeral and another when Watari had forcibly taken him out drinking after his first paper was published, and then all the remaining few were scattered throughout his student years. Mostly the first years, before he'd found his niche and the invites stopped, back when he'd been dragged to one house party or another and couldn't think of an excuse fast enough. Sometimes he'd woken up with a hangover then, waking up in the same living room where he'd spent the night before, sat on an unfamiliar couch, drinking and watching TV he couldn't hear over the music and didn't care about anyway.

That was the way he felt now, a sudden sense of disorientation in space and time that took him back years. Tatsumi awoke abruptly, thrown straight from shapeless, shifting dreams he couldn't remember to stare at the unfamiliar pattern blurring before his eyes, and it was a few seconds before he placed it as the same throw that had always lain over his couch. Not anywhere he remembered from his university years, just his own living room, although he'd never known how unfamiliar it might look at four or five in the morning.

He lifted his head slowly, becoming aware of the rough scratchy pattern the fabric had pressed into his face, glasses skewed since he'd slept in them for some reason, small aches knotted into his spine from sleeping all wrong. Tatsumi even _felt_ hungover, head swimming gently as he waited for the world to fall into place around him. There was the same nagging, guilty ache that he might have done something wrong, and of course, this was worse than anything he might have done at university.

He sat up slowly, still disorientated. It was dead silent at this time, before the rush of traffic, before even the rain and wind had woken. His living room was flooded with pale grey shadows and the sort of dim, milky bloom that wasn't so much morning as it was simply absence of night. Tatsumi went into the kitchen, kinks pressed into his spine slowly easing out with a twinge like little bruises blossoming in their wake. The storm had blown itself out, leaving nothing but a puddle of rusty rainwater under the open window. He dropped a tea towel half-heartedly onto it, stood there for a moment stupidly, as though he could find something else here to keep him busy, and then finally turned to the stairs, resigned. The stairs cracked with wounded, arthritic sound below his slow footsteps, climbing the steps like a man to the gallows.

Hisoka looked softer in sleep, the brilliant glitter of his eyes shut away somewhere in his dreams. Tatsumi sat down heavily and waited for the weight of his gaze to wake Hisoka, watching and wondering if he'd see repulsion when Hisoka realised what he'd done.

"Your bed is uncomfortable," Hisoka told him, without opening his eyes.

"The sofa is worse," Tatsumi said, after a pause.

"Your decision," Hisoka said, unconcerned, still not bothering to look up. Tatsumi leaned back in his chair, waiting. Hisoka sighed.

"It's done now," he said, sounding weary, sounding too old for sixteen. "Things can't get any worse now, can they?" He reached out without looking and flipped the corner of the duvet back. "It's too early. Go back to sleep."

The next time Tatsumi awoke, there was a long, tranquil moment before everything came to him. The diluted, milky dawn light had been chased away by the stronger, yellowish colour of early morning, perhaps as late as eight or nine a.m. He lay awake in the buttery wash of sunlight spilling in through curtains that hadn't been closed the night before, drifting in the incoherent state between dreams and consciousness.

When everything finally came together, there wasn't the sudden painful jolt that he'd expected. He'd already gone through weeks of worrying, weeks of guilt, and now there was nothing left. There was still something dreamy and distant about it all. Tatsumi didn't do things like this. He'd never initiated anything before the third or fourth date, let alone with a sixteen year old. He turned it over, wondering. Maybe things hadn't even technically gone far enough to be illegal. Maybe they had. He found it hard to care any more. He could tell himself he'd been irresponsible, even downright _abusive_, yet there had been something raw and genuine about it that he couldn't dismiss.

He moved the duvet further up Hisoka's shoulder, and watched Hisoka shrug him off reflexively, still asleep.

"This isn't right," he said, as if stating it would somehow absolve him.

"Is this the first time you broke the law?" Hisoka asked, a few minutes later, sleep-haze blurring the usual sharpness in his voice.

"I've done worse things," Tatsumi told him.

"What else have you done that's so awful?"

"I killed my mother," Tatsumi said. It was the first time he'd ever voiced the thought.

"Mm," Hisoka said, unconcerned. "How did you do it?"

"She was depressed," Tatsumi said. "I left the medicine cupboard unlocked, and she overdosed."

"That doesn't count," Hisoka sounded unimpressed.

"Well, sorry then," Tatsumi said, faintly amused. "Next time I kill someone, I'll use a chainsaw."

"Where are the rest of my clothes?" Hisoka raised his tousled head and looked around the room, sitting up but not quite emerging from the safety of the covers. Tatsumi didn't answer. Hisoka gave him an irritated look, then jerked the quilt free from the bed, taking it with him. Apparently he shared Tatsumi's dislike of leaving the room without being fully dressed, unlike Tsuzuki who could cheerfully waltz from bathroom to spare bedroom completely naked, and occasionally did so despite Tatsumi's gentle reminders.

Tatsumi leaned over and pulled out the first item of clothing he found in the drawer besides his bed. Hisoka took it from him, yanking it over his head without dropping the quilt. It was one of Tsuzuki's odder gifts that had never been worn, a novelty tshirt in a startling shade of blue, bearing the legend "Maths Problems? Call 1-800-[(10x)(1n(13e))-[sin(xy)/2.362x"

"Nice shirt," Hisoka said, eyebrow raised.

"Tsuzuki," Tatsumi said, by way of explanation. He waited a moment and then made his way back downstairs. After a few minutes of taps running, Hisoka finally joined him. Tatsumi was busily preparing breakfast, as though that would make everything normal.

"I didn't think you'd like cooking," Hisoka said.

"Why not?"

"I don't know," Hisoka shrugged. "It seems.. arty. Tsuzuki is more the type."

"Cooking well is about nothing more than balancing the proportions," he told Hisoka. "And as for Tsuzuki, he certainly is ..enthusiastic in the kitchen."

"Ah," Hisoka said, flicking through yesterday's newspaper. Tatsumi stole a quick glance over at him. Hisoka's usual expression was back in place, smooth and unreadable. Hisoka, _secret_, the black lines of the kanji etched like prison bars in his mind. Tatsumi turned back to the window. Outside, the garden was flooded with brilliant early light that concealed nothing.

"Shouldn't you go back home soon?" he asked. It was Sunday, and the streets still empty enough for Hisoka to leave unnoticed. It probably wouldn't matter very much if he was seen. None of the neighbours knew Tatsumi beyond a quick glimpse as he moved between front door and car. They didn't know his occupation, or whether he was perhaps a parent separated from a teenage son. Not an affluent area either, so no sons or daughters that might attend Hisoka's school.

"Yes," Hisoka agreed. "What's wrong with him?"

"Tsuzuki?" Tatsumi asked, startled by the sudden change in subject. To his knowledge, Hisoka had only met Tsuzuki twice. They hadn't talked about anything particularly significant when he had taken them both into hospital, and although they had been talking yesterday when he'd gone to pay admission, he doubted it had been about anything very serious in front of the other students. He remembered Hisoka's words earlier.

"He seems sad," Hisoka said, simply. Tatsumi gave his student a scrutinising look. Sometimes, he could see signs of depression in Tsuzuki- something flattened in his voice maybe, a smile stretched so thin it threatened to snap and spill over into hysteria. But Tsuzuki didn't wear his heart on his sleeve, especially when it came to his depression. He'd already spent a lifetime trying to hide who he was.

"It's nothing serious," Tatsumi finally said.

"He wants to die, Mr Tatsumi," Hisoka said, looking directly at him.

Tatsumi's breath caught in his throat as he went to dismiss it, and the words died before they were made truth. It got harder each time to dismiss Tsuzuki's previous suicide attempts. For a long time, he'd fallen back on that comforting old belief, that someone who _really_ wanted to kill themselves would do so, and that anything else was just attention seeking.

"How can you tell?" he asked.

"I suppose you'll think I'm crazy," Hisoka said, his eyes suddenly calculating. "But it's not like you can tell anyone this now, is it?"

"No," Tatsumi agreed. It was true enough. He didn't doubt that Hisoka would tell someone what happened, if Tatsumi gave away whatever secret it was.

"Dr Muraki says it's empathy," Hisoka said, stirring more sugar into his tea. "That I can read emotions, and pick up on surface thoughts. Like mind-reading. I suppose," He glanced up. Tatsumi kept his expression neutral, and after a moment, Hisoka continued.

"But that's not what he tells my parents, or anyone else at the hospital. I know my medical records say that I'm delusional. That I'm on the autistic spectrum and have trouble dealing with emotions, and that sometimes it causes panic attacks. I can't cope, so I externalise it onto others," He glanced up. "I suppose they're right. Things like empathy can't really exist, can they? You're an academic. You wouldn't believe this sort of thing."

"You're right," Tatsumi said, after a pause. "I was a researcher. Therefore, if someone can prove something under experimental conditions and there's no simpler explanation, I suppose I'll have to believe it until someone comes up with a better hypothesis."

"But it's nonsense," Hisoka said, frustrated. "Things like that can't exist-"

"Why not?" Tatsumi raised an eyebrow. "Have you heard of theory of mind?"

"Yes, bu-"

"A cognitive mechanism developing around the age of four, resulting in an innate ability to infer and understand the mental states of others. It's as close to mind-reading as most people ever get, and without any supernatural intervention at all, almost any child over four can infer someone's mental states and predict their future behaviour. Empathy, you might say-"

"It's not the same thing-"

"No," Tatsumi agreed. "But it's quite a special ability. Years to develop, only consistently been proven to exist in humans, and since it's located in the prefrontal cortices, you'll agree it's a recent acquisition in human evolution. Why couldn't your empathy follow on from this?"

Hisoka didn't answer.

"You're not delusional," Tatsumi told him. "Maybe your doctor has mislead you. And maybe, if we put you inside a functional imaging machine, we'd see patterns of activity no neurologist has ever seen before."

Hisoka was silent.

"I don't believe in magic," Tatsumi continued. "But I do believe that thoughts are nothing but coded electrochemical activity, and I also believe that codes can be broken." After all, DNA was nothing but a simple code made up from four chemicals chained over and over again.

"What's wrong with Tsuzuki, exactly?" Hisoka asked, back on the same subject. "I can't work it out-"

"It's his own business," Tatsumi said.

"How much do you know?"

"Not much," Tatsumi said, a note of finality in his voice. It was true. He only knew that Tsuzuki felt different, somehow inhuman. That he felt deeply guilty about something he had- or hadn't- done. He'd never pushed the question, leaving Tsuzuki to share when he was ready, and part of Tatsumi hoping he never would. He didn't want to share the sort of secret that could leave someone guilt-ridden years on, something that would be safer handed over to the authorities.

Hisoka paused, brooding. "I don't know if it's a good idea for Tsuzuki to keep seeing Muraki," he finally said. Tatsumi raised an eyebrow, and waited until he continued, slowly, as though choosing his words with care. "I've spent some time in hospital as an inpatient. All I know is that Muraki isn't interested in the usual sorts of patients."

"He specialises?" Tatsumi asked.

"Yes, you could say that," Hisoka said, looking doubtful, then shook his head after a moment or two's pause, dismissing whatever troubled him. Tatsumi didn't push it.

"Then what would you suggest?" Tatsumi asked.

"I don't know," Hisoka mumbled into his cup. "He isn't good for you though."

"We manage," Tatsumi said, a little stiffly, turning to watch the weak morning spread like spilled water across the skies. It was true enough. Sometimes he thought they were doing alright, when a week or two would go by and Tsuzuki could hold down a little light work, and would come round in the evenings and seem almost cheerful. It was just in those moments, when he found Tsuzuki near-catatonic, blood spattered, eyes doll-blank and promising madness.

He didn't think he would lose himself there, in the insanity he saw in Tsuzuki's eyes, but wasn't he tempted to leave, sometimes? Tatsumi knew he could do nothing for Tsuzuki but keep him alive, take care of his affairs and watch as he slowly degenerated. One day, he knew Tsuzuki end up in a nursing home, eyes hollow, nothing behind them at all but random thoughts snagged on the branches of a splintered, disintegrating mind. It was in those moments that he wondered if it would be for Tsuzuki's best if he finally succeeded in one of his attempts to throw himself out of this world, or if Tatsumi left and maybe that would somehow _force_ Tsuzuki to take care of himself. And sometimes, maybe, he admitted it would be to save himself, from his inadequacy, his own failure.

The door rang shrilly and interrupted his thoughts. Hisoka looked over the edge of his cup, unperturbed. "Aren't you going to answer that?"

It was Tsuzuki.

Tatsumi automatically moved to block the door, even though he'd shut the kitchen door safely behind him. Tsuzuki looked worried, and Tatsumi couldn't blame him, not when he glanced down at himself. The remains of yesterday's suit, down to a half-unbuttoned shirt, tie gone and dishevelled from being slept in.

"Let him in," Hisoka said, emerging from the kitchen before Tatsumi could think of a flimsy excuse, maybe invent some old university colleague he could plausibly have spent the night with, or an emergency that had kept him out all evening. "It'll be fine."

"Hisoka!" Tsuzuki said, sounding both startled and pleased. "But why are you-" He looked at Tatsumi, confused.

"Come on," Hisoka said, and Tsuzuki shrugged, following Hisoka into the living room. Tatsumi left them there while he stood in the hall, feeling lost for one of the first times in his life and not liking it at all, particularly not in his own house. He though Hisoka was probably right, that he could do almost anything wrong and Tsuzuki would never say a word to anyone, maybe more loyal than he should be. But that didn't mean he wanted anyone else to know what was going on- what _had_ gone on. And then eventually, he went back into the kitchen simply to have something to do except stand there, aware whatever control he'd had over this was already slipping out of his reach.

They were talking, but he had no idea what about, the occasional word filtering through the walls, not enough pieces to put together. It wasn't until he heard Muraki's name mentioned that he left the kitchen, pausing in the doorway. Tsuzuki was leaning forward in his seat, pushing his sunglasses up miserably. Tatsumi had never seen Tsuzuki voluntarily reveal his eyes to anyone before.

"Hmm," Hisoka said, neutrally, somewhere out of sight. "I can see why he would be interested."

"You don't think they're strange?" Tsuzuki asked, his voice suddenly hesitant.

"Can you shoot laser beams from them?" Hisoka asked, a little dryly. Tsuzuki laughed, weak helpless laugh that seemed almost shaken from him, and Tatsumi disappeared back into the kitchen, quietly closing the door behind him.

Tsuzuki and Hisoka came in a few minutes later, and then went straight through the kitchen door into the back garden. Tsuzuki didn't have a garden himself, and left to himself Tatsumi would do nothing except keep the grass clipped short and tidy. Tsuzuki had taken over and grown the sorts of plants that he couldn't keep in his own flat.

Tsuzuki mostly grew tulips. His own flat was overrun with every other type of flower, with no distinction between the expensive orchid Tatsumi had given him for his birthday, and the ugly little spider plant he'd found wilted and brown and abandoned outside someone's house next to broken furniture and overflowing bin bags. They had all thrived in his flat, despite the poor lighting and the irregular central heating system that Tatsumi had repeatedly harassed the landlord about. But he said tulips wouldn't grow indoors and needed cool winters to flower, and that was how Tatsumi's garden was overrun with them. They were gaudier than he liked. Tsuzuki said their genetics were unpredictable, and now the garden rioted with mismatched colour. Every colour, dusky pinks and deep velvety purples, drifts of snowy white flowers and streaky flame-coloured tulips cupping waspish black and yellow hearts.

Tatsumi watched the two of them, dusted with a light sprinkling of raindrops, Tsuzuki moving aside armfuls of heavy blooms to look for any signs of pests or diseases, Hisoka standing some distance away, watching with a somewhat amused expression. They were talking, the conversation muted and lost before it even reached the open window. Tsuzuki looked brighter already, as though the light drizzle had washed away the sadness that always lay over him. The morning light chipped splinters of cool fire from the beaded water gathering on the leaves, framed them in halos of pale morning light, and Tatsumi turned away from the window and left them to it.

They came back in some minutes later, to find him in the living room.

"What are you looking for?" Tsuzuki asked.

"Tie," Tatsumi said briefly, moving a cushion aside from the sofa.

"In the hall," Tsuzuki said, and then paused. "Hanging from the light," he added, wickedly, just as Tatsumi disappeared from the room.

Hisoka didn't leave, and Tatsumi didn't ask him again. He let the day pass quietly, working to distract himself, as though there was nothing wrong about spending the day with his pupil and a man who should rightfully be in psychiatric care.

At about ten, Tsuzuki yawned, and stood to go upstairs. He paused, unsure.

"Is Hisoka in-"

"No," Tatsumi said, cutting him off before anything too awkward was said. "The spare room's free."

Tatsumi watched Tsuzuki disappear upstairs up to the small spare room that he'd come to think of as Tsuzuki's own. He noticed Hisoka doing the same, a slight furrow smoothing out between his brows as he noticed Tatsumi watching, and Tatsumi wondered what nightmares had sank into the walls of that small room.


End file.
